Atalyja

Atalyja (“The rain is coming”) is a Lithuanian folk-rock music band. It seeks to popularize archaic Lithuanian folklore and bring the ancient songs closer to the contemporary listener. The band's creations boast a big variety of musical styles, rich tonal palette and unique and ingenious arrangements. The ancient melodies are enriched with elements of rock, jazz, funk, blues rock, metal and Indian music. Atalyja regularly participates in music festivals and fests. The band has released 4 CD albums and gave performances in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Germany, Turkey, Czech Republic, Belarus and Russia. Over more than ten years of its existence Atalyja has earned love of listeners of different age groups. The main part of the repertoire consists of sutartinės (polyphonic archaic songs - glees), calendar, war-historical, and wedding songs. Musical expression ranges from meditative improvisation to hard compositional art rock. Experimentation is not unfamiliar to the band musicians – the melodies of traditional songs are mixed with elements of classic rock, metal rock, blues rock, funk, and progressive rock, as well as classical music. The bands’s composing manner is marked by professional, dainty artistical arrangements, rich tonal palette, diverse rhythms, and unique polyphony. Traditional Lithuanian instruments (kanklės, panpipes, violin, bagpipe, Jew's harp are ingeniously combined with electric and bass guitars, rock percussion. Some songs are coloured with oriental shades of North Indian instruments: the bansuri (transverse Indian bamboo flute) as well as tabla (Indian pair drum).