Kairos 105, April 2019 on Concertzender

Once a month or just about, Wo. listenes to .No's monthly radio show on Concertzender. A show called Kairos. A show in which music is played that almost for certain would never have reached his ears, except for those pieces of music where the blog and the show influence each other. Every single time is an adventure Wo. says as "I have no clue upfront how the music will hit me". Sometimes even baffling artists with his musings, who respond to .No over Wo.'s experiences. That is the way of the musical world it seems. Lets see where Wo. found himself with the April 2019 version of Kairos.


Having just been to the gym I am sitting here with a different form of energy than the usual closer to the end of the day. I wonder if this influences my Kairos experience.

Slow sounds like musicians warming up reach me. They are, roughly at least, playing the same composition it seems, yet there is a hint of something unfinished to me. A copper instrument leads the whole on, beneath it is almost a free for all as long as it is the same key. When a darker instrument joins the orderly disorder, I have the idea it does not belong. Yet does, in the way .No can mix songs. Sytze Pruiksma is replaced by Trio Ramberget. The background is gone, darkness prevails, with serious notes from instruments playing in a low register. Somehow it could be a continuation, 'Blue Throat' and 'Eb dur Torpet'. Music sounding over a dark fjord, like fog horns, warning all around it.

A piano takes over, again darkness with sound coming through it. A bass note and some hiss. The song is called 'Vault', so I can't let go of the impression that this music is coming from the grave. As Reigns plays louder ever so slowly, this music can only presage a zombie army rising. The tricks of a mind while listening to modern classical music. Although this could be incorporated into symphonic rock without any doubt.

The mood doesn't change, again. Yet, a guitar comes in replacing the piano. Harrold Roeland returns, but for the life of me I can't tell where Reigns stops and Roeland begins, except at a certain point the music drops away and is replaced by sounds and atmosphere. I have heard Pink Floyd do something like this on its best albums, before a glorious song like 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' really bursts loose.

When high sounding voices can be heard in between the sounds, at first ever so hesitantly, I know .No is working his mixing machine. A mash up of Harrold Roeland and Trondheim Voices. Sounds like those used in submarine movies and other undefinable sounds are hanging suspended in the mix behind the high voice. This composition is so fragile, I can imagine it breaking. I do notice being intrigued for the first time by Trondheim Voices. It sounds as if something is about to happen any second. The fjord and the mist comes back to mind, but now without a fog horn or any other warning sound. Navigating a dangerous coast in pitch dark, that is the image 'Rise' presents to me.

Recently I read that Low Hill signed a record contract with a company. After inquiring it turned out to be for one single only. There are no coincidences it seems. This Kairos Low Hill returns to the show after an absence of some months, perhaps even a year. His mysterious music fits this show excellently. His voice, good sounding as ever, is what I can do with right now. Yes, I like 'Falling' as much as I did when I first reviewed the EP. Modest electronic pop music, with a mood that is slightly downcast. Laurens Hulle might be falling for someone, it is not as if he is overjoyed by it. More like it is something that still needs a lot of rational thought.

The mysterious music continues with Högni's 'Parallel', but it could be something is missing on the play list. Now that the fjord image is in my mind, I can't seem to shake it. That has to do with the sounds that simply seem to continue after Low Hill's intermission. Listen to the, what is it I'm hearing?, these little glockenspiel things that can be ticked against each other, digital something? I just do not know. The submarine bleeps are back and some sounds hovering around in the mix. What is real here? What is .No mixing away? I simply can't tell what it is I'm listening to. There is no mistaking, this music is slightly troubling. I notice that the sounds are unsettling. The voice that comes in like a soul crooner, does not help. The sounds just continue and the singing in part is like it comes from behind the grave, once again. "Though I'm fading" the singer sings and I am confirmed in my inner visions accompanying this music. Checking the music on Shazam, I got a picture of Högni showing four eyes in his face. So my feelings are not so strange. Something is just not right it seems. Deeply troubling.

Electronic beats? The mood is really being lifted, were it not that all the sounds defining Högni are still present for a while. I am listening to something I have never heard on Kairos before. Electronic dance music, with a twist of course. The beats do not simply go straight forward in Etapp Kyle's 'Axiom'. The submarine sounds return as do the twinkles, pushing the beats away. I am in the pitch dark fjord again. Rock every where and my vessel on the water with no clue where to sail. Danger potentially every where and nowhere at the same time.

A new sound can be heard through the vestigial fog. "Let thy soul be wakened", I'm told. Someone with an Indian accent is telling me to wake up and to feel. Repeated and repeated. So here I am in the fjord. Have I fallen asleep or is this a male siren calling me to the rocks to go asunder? It's pitch dark, fog thick all around me and I'm told to feel. As if my senses aren't already stretched to the max, listening to every other sound and trying to interpret it as safeness or danger. And then someone calls out to me. No, thank you, but I'll pass for now.

From Low Hill to Low Roar is a small step in Kairos. Ryan Karazija, as he is behind the name Low Roar, returns to Kairos with the beautiful 'Without You'. If anything this song sooths my souls and eases my senses. I'm caressed and am told things will be alright. Why do I have more faith in Low Roar than in the Indian chant?

Low Roar leaves me behind and suspense takes over once more. House of Cosy Cushions starts to 'Haunt Me Sweetly'. Again music that gives the impression to come from the nether side. This Kairos is dark, darker than I ever remember. Let me not forget to mention that 'Haunt Me Sweetly' is a song that immediately gets to me. The way it is build up is excellent. The atmosphere may be dark, the details, the female voice that joins in, work really well. It ends like a dirge though.

Some spoken words takes over. Like something that could have come from Tom Waits. Tom it is not but something called Hiss-Tacts. Something to do with a harmonica.

Again a song comes in. A song from an album that was on the blog first. From a Susanna from Norway with four other ladies accompanying her. You can read on by searching for 'Garden Of Earthly Delights'. Again a dark song, but one that is so welcome at this stage. The almost hesitant way the music is played, reminds me of U.K. folk band Modern Studies. At certain points it is as if 'Beautiful Life' will break down, will falter but does not at the very last second.

It all ends as we almost began this Kairos, with the dark copper and woodwind of Trio Ramberget. The fog horn has finally returned and leads me towards the harbour in the fjord. Finally I can sail home and lay my head to rest after a night full of suspense. This was a dark Kairos with several highlights and loads of mysteries. Well done, .No. What I almost forget to mention, is how beautiful 'E dur - Fält' is. It gives the impression that the world is unchanging. Going about its business and us humans running around on top of it, with the world not caring. It will outlive us all, one way or another. Now that is a song we will never hear on Kairos.

Wo.

You can listen (along) to this Kairos here:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_498667/


Playlist:
00:00  Sytze Pruiksma. Blue Throat. Album ‘Conference of the Birds’. Self-released.
02:13  Trio Ramberget. Eb dur Torpet. Trio Ramberget (Johanna Ekholm, Gustav Davidsson, Pelle Westlin). Album ‘Musik att somna till’. Self-released.
05:38  Reigns. Vaulted. Album ‘The House on the Causeway’. Monotreme records MONO-37.
07:55  Harrold Roeland. Generative Landscapes – Paris. Self-released.
10:56  Trondheim Voices + Asle Karstad. Rise. Album ‘Rooms & Rituals’. Grappa LC49093.
16:15  Laurens Vanhulle. Falling. Low Hill. Album ‘Hurt’. Self-released.
26:21  Högni Parallel. Album ‘Two Trains’. Erased Tapes Records eratp103
32:00 Etapp Kyle. Axiom (fragment). Album ‘Klockworks 16’. Klockworks /
Modern Matters.
36:14  Yogi Bhajan. Let Thy Soul be Awakened (fragment). Golden Temple Enterprises.
40:05  Ryan Karazija. Without You. Low Roar. Album ‘Once in a long, long while’. Nevado Records 823674059620.
43:46  Richard Bolhuis/House of Cosy Cushions. Haunt Me Sweetly. Album ‘Haunt Me Sweetly’. Outcast Cats CAT 0C01.
47:41  Hiss-Tacts. Drake Motel. Album ‘Shortwave Nights’. Constellation cstl04-2
48:34  Susanna & The Brotherhood of our Lady. Beautiful Life. Album ‘Garden of earthly delights’. Susannasonata/It’s All Happening..
51:04  Trio Ramberget. E dur – Fält (fragment). Trio Ramberget (Johanna Ekholm, Gustav Davidsson, Pelle Westlin). Album ‘Musik att somna till’. Self-released.