Since its inception in 2009, Gergana Dimitrova's Belonoga project has built itself around one of the most heart-opening voices in all the world. It's a voice born from roots in Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, grafted into global others through collaboration. On this follow-up to 2013's Through the Eyes of the Sun, Dimitrova convenes kaval virtuoso and composer Kostadin Genchev, guitarist and bassist Aleks Nushev, gadulka player Violeta Petkova, and percussionist Peter Todorov. The result is her deepest record yet, at once evoking a mature tree and the autumn leaves clinging to its branches. Unbound by any single interpretation of history or time, she closes her eyes to open her heart, singing as if to bring dying cultures to fullness of life. Thus, her music reads like water, her singing like land: each shapes the other into a cartography of human pathways.

"Stoyna's Path" alights on sacred ground, moving forward with assurance in its veins, soon overtaken by "Flight." What begins in intimate, folky territory opens into a percussion-compelled trajectory across continents, cycling through waves of cloud, sun, and stars as if scrolling through the world on a tablet screen. That said, and despite a patina of post-production, the album cups its hands around a flame that has been burning for millennia, housed in only the rarest of lanterns. Like the later track "Niko Mori," it packs dirt beneath its feet while cutting air with its wings, and covers vast amounts of territory without ever feeling intrusive.

The program is structured to let influences seep through without force. Each brings inherent qualities to fruition. Nu-jazz touches adorn "Blaming Heart." Tightly knit melodies fortify "Devilish Girl." Grooves dominate "Ribarishko." And the mantra-like repetitions of "Halei Lei" string vocal beads as if around the neck of a mother who carries her children through life unashamed of protection. Even when she recedes into instrumentals like "Gadoula Doula" and "Shopp Ladies (Residents of the Shopp District)," she listens to her phenomenal band with blessings in mind.

A masterwork to be savored for its narrative details, impressions, and possibilities, and a profound reminder of what creative spirits can do when loosed from their cages. - Tyran Grillo