Kairos July 2017, by .No on Concertzender

Each month .No creates his Kairos show that Concertzender broadcasts at the beginning of the month. After that it may be online until perpetuity and beyond. As long as there is a search engine supplied with electricity and a server that hosts the program.

Each month Wo. listens to Kairos and shares his thoughts and ideas, puts them online and as long as there is ...., you get the drift. Let's not while our time away and let's get down to it: the verdict on this month's Kairos is in.

Each month the show begins with the same mysterious music and the dark voice introducing the show. Slow moving piano notes move in. Kairos has truly started. I recognise the kind of music from last month and indeed Charles Henri Maulini it is. I am listening to his musical rendition of Paris. Now I'm not sure which Paris this song shares with me, but it can't be the city of light nor the one in Texas. Only in the most abstract of ways this can be Paris, so full of grace and elegance. More like the slow moving clouds in the sky on a blue, summer's day, than anything to do with the bustling city below. Not even at night there is this tranquillity. So where then? Père Lachaise? The Bois de Boulonge? It is any ones guess where Maulini imagines this Paris in his composition 'Paris'. Perhaps it only exists in his imagination. 'Paris' is beautiful, like the city is in its own way. So there you go, I found the key.

Someone we are hearing for months now is Richard Bolhuis and his House of Cosy Cushions. This dark song inhibits my calm, tranquil world created by Charles Henri Maulini. Bolhuis sings softly, the repeated music in the background is menacing. It is a loop but not quite as little changes are allowed in. Just another instrument added to the whole. I find it hard to really make something of 'Girl with the insect dress'. With a, maybe even any, different background, it would have been a lot less hard, perhaps even beautiful. This looped music is devoid of emotions. Like someone who sees the dress but has no feelings any which way because of the dress -nor the girl for that matter.

It's time for some lute. Stathis Skandalidis plays 'Reunion Dance' by Gilbert Isbin. From an album full of Isbin's songs. Where does one find an album like this? I'm fairly sure it is nowhere near where I frequent to buy albums. This evening I played 'Led Zeppeling IV'. Strangely enough I'm reminded of a few of the folk songs on that album. No not of 'Black Dog' or 'Rock and Roll, although it would be something if that latter song was to turn up on Kairos. One of the best rock songs ever recorded. Skandalidis plays anything but rock. You notice my mind wondering? There you have it.

(Somewhere, with me pondering Led Zeppelin the composition switched to 'Cantio Lodomerica XIX', played by Massimo Marchese. .No fooled me there. Never noticed it.)

My two best friends go to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam together regularly for years now and never miss out on anything composed by Dmitri Shostakovich. With me wondering what all the fuss is about. .No is giving me the needle in the haystack as a small part of a fugue is part of this show. Deep dark sounds and some milder ones are played by the Calefax Reed Quartet. It's not my music, but this is far from a punishment.

All sorts of church bells enter the sound. Why, I have no clue. They fade away again and are replaced by a single piano chord, heavy handed, solitary, with some sounds in the background that have nothing to do with the solitary chord, that is repeated every so many seconds. Minco Eggersman, was introduced recently on this blog by .No in his very well "read" .NoWordsNeeded. In this composition called 'Tblisi calls' Eggersman seems to work with time and space in notes. So much air is allowed into the music that it seems more like a fata morgana than music. I was fortunate enough to have visited Tblisi for a conference with a few hours to spare to see something of the city. I remember a Dutch musician sitting on the plane with me going there to work. It was more a DJ type if I remember it correctly, but then who knows? In 'Tblisi calls' Eggersman mixes several styles. There are faint traces of pop and rock, the free form of jazz is mixed with a classical mood, while avant garde soundscapes support the soulful saxophone of The Crusaders and those other soul-jazz types of the late 70s. All this comes together in over 11 minutes in a convincing way. What it has to do with the Georgian capitol I can't tell, but that it can be proud of this work baring its name is clear to me.

The bells take me to a second work from the same album, 'Kavkasia'. 'Deda Ena' is very different, more pop like, with some folk added to it. A beautiful acoustic guitar and a violin determine the mood of this song, which is very melancholy. A sad goodbye. Again I'm struck by how subtle the instruments are added along the way. This works very well. Too bad there is no real lyric, that would have made the song perfect.

Back to Ireland. Where I wondered last month what it was I was hearing until I read the location of recording, I know now right from the start. Béal Tuinne plays 'Briotánach Óg ó L’Orient'. (How do I pronounce that? I really have no clue.) The Celtic folk comes through every once and again. This is the solemn variant though. Fit to be played in a church. Folk it is though. Béal Tuinne is a band, if I can call it that, of singers and players from West Kerry. The uniqueness of the music comes from the adding of a harmonium to the whole, which explains the church sound some more. Again I have to say that this music touches me. Some googling tells me that the title means "A Young Breton from l'Orient".

Soft piano chords and notes come in. This time it is Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch with her compostion 'Strelka'. Nothing is what it seems as some weird sound, fairly out of place, moves through the whole, before lighter notes join, taking the mood in a totally different direction. When weird sounds return it becomes hard to focus. What is real and what not. Donald Trump shouting "Fake News" while it is all true in the end. Something like that is going on here.

Ah, a familiar piece of music. Moon Moon Moon returns to the show once again. The lightly sounding 'Deathbed' comes by. Again I am touched by how close Mark Lohmann's voice resembles Conor Oberst's (formerly) of Bright Eyes. Moon Moon Moon somehow seems so much more real to me. The elementary guitar progression is repeated again and again and it is enough. Slowly the other instruments and sound envelope themselves around the progression until it is taken out of the whole and the atmosphere led by the brushing percussive sound is all that is left. The deathbed is now empty.

A high voice enters and I'm thinking 'I know this also'. And I do. My latest tip to .No has already found its way to Kairos. Low Roar is the musical project of Ryan Karazija, who by way of Iceland, as Californian by birth, released his second album called 'Once In A Long. Long While'. 'Poznan' is a beautiful track. Light as a feather. I have to sit so still, otherwise the movement I produce will just blow it away. Beyond my reach. Recently I reviewed the album, so go and peruse on the blog (later, please), while I move on to ...

... another veteran of Kairos, who we have missed for several months, Jesse Mac Cormack. 'He Knows' fits well with the songs that came before. Like certainly Moon Moon Moon but Low Roar as well, Mac Cormack is someone who does his own things. Armed with a loop pedal he takes on the world. 'He Knows' is one of his best songs in my opinion. He touches a level of maturity here, without going off the deep end, although in the middle section it does become a bit eerie when he starts to harmonise with himself. Everything comes together again quite nicely in the end.

Ben Lukas Boysen also returns. Long, deep sounds are held for a long time. Not a lot happens in the introduction, until a piano enters and a violin (or two). Boysen is not in a hurry. The album this is taken from is called 'Mother Nature' and when is she in a rush? It's us that are rushing around and sometimes one of the externalities of Earth, beyond our control. The music is contemplative, full of rest with a small burst of change here and there.

Eggersman returns as well. This time with a Middle Eastern melody that I can not really make head or tails from. Thijs van Leer without the yodle and high voice. Something like that. More voices join and then a guitar.

That instrument belongs to Will Samson. That has also been a while since I heard him on Kairos. It is high summer, the days super long and .No preludes on the next season, autumn. Sorry, .No. but I still have my holidays ahead of me, so I could do without this. The music does touch me though, as the slow, meandering moves of the song take me to a forest with a small brook running though it. Plants every where, ferns, insects, butterflies, the light shining through the leaves on the branches above me, playing its game with the forest. Total tranquillity. And as I have used this word before this Kairos, I declare that my theme of this month. (Perhaps for lack of having found a better one.)

The Real Group sings something a capella in a language that will be from somewhere in Scandi country. It's all over before I really can get into the Group. It sounds modern but churchy, which is o.k.

This Kairos ends with more piano notes of the solitary kind. A kind of musical style .No really likes as I hear it so often on Kairos. It is not for me, but it certainly brings me into a pleasant mood once a month. It is Gabi Sultana who plays darts, I mean 'DART', a composition by Benjamin van Esser. It is the end, I notice that I've lost my attention span, and hear my girlfriend opening the back door, coming home after a long day. So what a timing. Time to close shop.

Wo.

You can listen to this month's Kairos here on Concerzender:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_403411/


This is the playlist:

00:11 Charles Henri Maulini. Paris.
Album ‘Peaks’. Volkoren 72.
03:10 Richard Bolhuis. Girl with the insect dress. House of Cosy Cushions.
Album ‘Spell’. Outcast Cats CAT 0C002CD.
06:00 Gilbert Isbin. Reunion dance.
Stathis Skandaldis, luit.
Album ‘Stathis Skandalidis plays Gilbert Isbin’. Tern Records, Tern 007.
09:02 Roman Turovsky. Cantio Lodomerica XIX.
Massimo Marchese, luit.
Album: ‘Dialogues with time’. Da Vinci Classics C00028.
10:26 Dmitry Shostakovich. Andante E min. uit Preludes & Fugues op. 87.
Calefax reed quintet.
Album ‘Calefax plays Shostakovich’. MDG 619 185-2.
12:21 Minco Eggersman. Tblisi calls.
Album ‘Kavkasia. Volkoren 73.
23:32 Minco Eggersman. Deda Ena.
Album ‘Kavkasia. Volkoren 73.
26:55 Béal Tuinne. Briotánach Óg ó L’Orient.
Album ‘Live at St James’Church, Dingle. TARA CD 4022.
32:54 Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch. Strelka.
Album ‘Like Water Through The Sand’. FactCat Records CD13-20P (130701).
35:55 Mark Lohmann. Deathbed. Moon Moon Moon .
Album Help! Help! Tiny Room Records TR015.
39:17 Ryan Karazija. Poznan. Low Roar.
Album ‘Once in a long, long while’. Nevado Records 823674059620.
41:11 Jesse Mac Cormack. He Knows.
Album: ‘Crush’. Secret City Records 6 80341047002 3.
45:33 Ben Lukas Boysen. To Nature.
Album ‘Mother Nature’. Hymen Records ¥807.
49:10 Minco Eggersman. Melisma & Gurian.
Album ‘Kavkasia. Volkoren 73
51:00 Will Samson. Music for autumn.
Album ‘Balance’. Karaoke Kalk 69CD.
54:48 The Real Group. Om alla Berg och Dalar.
Album ‘Stämning’. Virgin 7243 812535 2 6.
55:22 Benjamin van Esser. DART for piano and electronics.
Gabi Sultana, piano.
Voor zover bekend niet op album uitgebracht. Zie https://www.youtube.com