Kairos September 2017 on Concertzender by .No

It's that day of the month again that Wo. sits down and listens to the radio show of .No called Kairos on Concertzender. Through the years something has changed as more and more artists who made it to the pages of this Blog find their way to the show. Songs that fit really well in the concept, while Wo. is exposed to music that he would never have heard in his life, make their way to his ears. Sometimes he even truly likes them. So what has .No put on his playlist this month?

Too often people seem to die in .No's circle of friends, teachers and acquaintances. Again the show is dedicated to someone, unfamiliar to me, who crossed that mysterious border that awaits us all. The show starts with a befitting piece of music, the 'Intro' to that beautiful album 'Another Place' by Amsterdam band Maggie Brown. A song that makes the listener cross the border into the album, one of my favourites of 2017 and the 10s.

'Intro' is very short and soon an acoustic guitar takes over. Again Bruce Cockburn comes by. The song is more traditional than Maggie Brown's. Moodwise the selection works well. In this English folkstyle song called 'Life's Mistress' the Canadian tells a story of watching things from the outside in and how the lady is one with nature. The guitar is intricately plucked, playing different melodies on the bass and higher notes. This man can play.

A famous song is up next, but in a estranging version. A sound like Indonesian gamalans play the melody, Sidsel Endresen sings 'The Lady Is A Tramp'. The song by Rodgers and Hart from the 1937 musical 'Babes In Arms', made famous by Frank Sinatra. In this version the vocal melody totally remains in its strength, meets and then joins another culture. Endresen together with Bugge Wesseltoft created something truly new from something now 80 years old. Whether I like it is another question, but the same goes for the musical version and Sinatra's. I can hear how good he sings, but it is from another generation, so close to alien to my ears. It makes me understand my own musical generation gap, rap, house, trance, etc., better and appreciate the taste of youths in the 10s for what it is: their music. Although several of them truly appreciate the bands and songs that I like best.

The gamalan is slowly replaced by a piano that could have been a Sinatra accompanying piano, but is not. It is Brian Eno from one of his more famous titles, that I never listened to until now, 'Ambient 1. Music For Airports'. And indeed the air travellers in the 70s and 80s may still in general have liked Sinatra style music. I'm in for an initiation of Eno's ambient music, I see. Over 16 minutes. So I'm closing my eyes and listen. Sinatra leaves the song and is replaced by a repetitive piano motives, with ambient sounds and tape hiss and estranging notes that are thrown into the whole. The version of 'The Lady Is A Tramp' worked well with this composition as a fine introduction I notice. The music has a calming effect on me, if not drowsing me, making me feel sleepy, but also a bit sad. Nothing seems to be going on any more. As if the world has stopped turning, aeroplanes stopped flying and airports only catch cosmic waves, particles and debris, that are translated into music for airports. With no people there to listen. And yes, that makes me feel sad. Impressive? Yes. Too long? Yes, also, but only about three minutes.

Maurice Duruflé's In Paradisum (from Requiem Op.9)' by The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford disturbs the ambient music, probably a whole LP side, with angelic singing and some music hidden somewhere deep in the mix, a small church organ. The singing is a relief after the repetitive ambient, close to minimal music of Eno. Slowly the subdued emotions rise and deeper voices join the childrens'.

The piano chord that follows is flawlessly placed. Once again Low Roar comes by. This time with the song '13' from its album 'Once In A Long, Long While'. A piano plays sole, sparse notes accentuated by a chord. Is it my imagination or do I hear the choir mixed in here and there, deep in the background?

In general I notice again how deep .No has moved into piano driven music. Where I remain a guitar guy, I tend to listen to a lot of piano once a month. Which makes for a nice change.

Jonas Munk & Jason Kolb also return to Kairos. For a snippet of their music called 'Odessa'. No famous stairs here, no pram rolling of them either. Just a windswept place created by electronic sounds, over before I know it, with another slow playing piano moving in.

This is Jeroen Elfferich's 'Snowflakes'. The piano tickles like slow falling snowflakes can do, those first small flakes that drift through the air, solitary, having no impact apart from how beautiful it looks. Sometimes just before real snow starts falling, covering everything and muffling sounds and the world. Elfferich's music is like that first flakes. Slowly gathering momentum with a second melody. I have the impression that I'm hearing more than two hands at work, so is this a work for two pianists? It seems very much like it. And then it stops. And starts again, the last flakes are falling down. No, they are not, we get some more.

Martin Pals returns too. The folk tune is sung by Rosan Vloedgraven. The playing by Pals. The singing is in a way like Jerney Kaagman did in the first and best incarnation of Earth & Fire, the music spans several centuries. Sort of confusing, yes, but also an exercise that shows that the (prog)rockers of the early 70s had their influences in traditional folk. All evolves, returns and evolves again.

From here the music changed so fast that I lost count and had to start listening again, forcing me to revise my storyline completely.

By now another veteran of Kairos and this Blog is House of cosy Cushions. The guitar composition is something I truly like. Some sounds come in, a treated voice emulating a horn of some sort. It's over very fast, but yes, I like this.

Then Bhava comes back. I think for the third time in a row I'm hearing something of the album on Kairos that makes me wonder why I liked the album by The World of Dust so much? Where are the songs, .No? Give them to us. They are so good! This jazzy outing is made to sound like it comes to us from another century, as if one of the earliest recordings. .No gives us only a minute, so have no way of knowing whether this is it or that there is more, preventing me from getting the point The World of Dust wants to make here, as I am not getting it now.

In moves a piano and a violin. Minco Eggerman returns with his Georgian album 'Kavkasia', a song called 'The Other Side Of Dawn'. The violin is as disruptive as the Greek players on the Chris & Carla album recorded in Thessaloniki, where they played The Walkabouts together with the Greeks. I am talking about the solo violin here and not the string section that sounds like a movie soundtrack where lovers see the sun go down together. In the background the guitar goes on without hesitation as does the sole piano.

And where does This Leo Sunrise start? Can I catch it the second time? Am I crazy or is .No's playlist fooling me. As the guitar and piano finally disappear, I can only suppose that the two scratching violins belong to 'The Gardener Path'. When things go quiet, singing starts and I recognise the song. English folk is, again, the basis of this song. Folk mixed with ambience. I think I have found this month's overarching theme here. Slowly the song expands, but remains calm and tranquil. The faint estranging effects in the background give 'The Gardener Path' something scary as if more could happen here than just listening to a song. Well done, This Leo Sunrise.

Church bells mixes with the violin. More sacred music. Not coincidentally from an album with that title. Men's voices of Theater of Voices sing solemnly something composed by an anonymous. Disappeared in time. That there is hope for any anonymous was proven last week by research on Medieval manuscripts that over 200 years after their discovery are attributed to a clerk of a Dutch baron. So be patient anonymous composer of 'Resonemus Hoc Natali'. Who knows what lies in store for you.

We move on to a cheap piano (I'm not buying it, but o.k.). Dustin O’Halloran & Adam Bryanbaum Wiltze composed a minuet for a cheap piano, with some electronics behind it to hide the cheapness? The piano playing, once again, is sparse. The electronics are just as sparse. The piano sounds rather flat, so it might be cheap after all. But why would one want to compose a minuet for a cheap piano? It is beyond me.

A piano starts the last song. We are back at the beginning of the show with Maggie Brown. It's album ends with the song 'Hummingbird', the song that Marcel Hulst commented on that the band couldn't find the right guitar intro to and settled for a piano instead. 'Hummingbird is a beautiful song that ends the album 'Another Place' and this Kairos. For you, listener and reader, I hope that .No will return to the album and let's you join in the pleasure of listening to the purest of pop songs 'Hail To The Rain' or the title song. If not, go to Maggie Brown's Bandcamp page and buy the album there. In 2017 there will not be many better albums, says,

Wo.

You can listen to this month's Kairos here:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_411751/

Playlist:


00:07 Maggie Brown. Intro. Album ‘Another Place’. Private label.
00:48 Bruce Cockburn. Life’s mistress. Album ‘High Winds White Sky’. True North Records TN 3.
03:59 Rodgers/Hart. The lady is a tramp Sidsel Endresen & Bugge Wesseltoft. Album ‘Nightsong’. ACT (4) ‎– ACT 9004-2
09:20 Brian Eno. Music for Airports 1/1. Album ‘Ambient 1. Music for Airports’. EMI 50999 6 84523 2 2.
25:42 Maurice Duruflé. In Paradisum (from Reqiuem Op. 9). The Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford. Dir. Bill Ives. Album ‘Sacred Music’. Harmonia Mundi HMX 2908304.33.
27:15 Ryan Karazija. 13. Low Roar. Album ‘Once in a long, long while’. Nevado Records 823674059620.
31:52 Jonas Munk & Jason Kolb. Odessa. Billow Observatory (Jonas Munk, elektronics, Jason Kolb, guitar & elektronics). Album ‚Billow Observatory‘. Felte 003.
33:10 Jeroen Elfferich. Snowflakes. Album ‘Zero’. Private label.
38:35 Martin Pals. When comes that sleep Rosan. Monad (Rosan Vloedgraven, Martin Pals). Private recording.
40:06 Richard Bolhuis / House of Cosy Cushions. Outcast Cats. Album ‘Haunt me Sweetly’. Outcast Cats records CAT 0C01.
42:08 Stefan Breuer. Cumulus. Bhava. Album ‘The World Of Dust’. Snowstar Records/Tiny Room Records.
43:28 Minco Eggersman. The other side of dawn. Album ‘Kavkasia’. Volkoren 73.
45:45 This Leo Sunrise. The gardener path. Album ‘Spoken’. Tiny Room Records TR008.
50:51 Anonymus. Resonemus Hoc Natali. Theatre of voices. Dir. Paul Hillier. Album ‘Sacred Music’. Harmonia Mundi HMX 2908304.33.
54:03 Dustin O’Halloran & Adam Bryanbaum Wiltze. Minuet for a cheap piano number two. Dustin O’Halloran & Adam Bryanbaum Wiltze. Album ‘A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Erased Tape Records ERATP032CD
56:49 Maggie Brown. hummingbird. Album ‘Another Place’. Private label.