Kairos 116, April 2020

Another month gone. It is time for Wo. to catch up on Kairos, his once a month mind enlarging experience in music his WoNo partner .No presents him with. Where will things lead him and thus you, our dear readers?

Things start really mysterious this month. Electronicly produced sounds that seem to hover over the table in my office where I'm listening. It is not the first time I'm hearing this. It is Niklas Paschburg from his album 'Svalbard'. An album where slow piano playing, meets electronics and mystery. The three blend in a way that is extremely well done. I already had reviewed Svalbard in a positive way over a month ago, together with Job Roggeveen and Ella van der Woude and tipped the album for Kairos. Listening so often to the program, does give me a keen ear, although it does happen that I am totally mistaken. So be it, I like to hand over ideas, influence by way of my listening experiences, not to make the program. .No and I obviously have our own, sometimes highly complementary skills. And musical tastes, as you will have gathered over the years.

During my musings Svalbard in the meantime seems to have disappeared or totally taken apart. .No has gone to work and is becoming his own Pink Floyd. Spoken word fragments, mysterious music and a looped undercurrent somehow come together, but I have no idea what I'm hearing. For moments like that I have Shazam. It tells me I'm listening to The Orb, although it's not in the tracklist. (It has a gap of circa 10 minutes.) The extremely relaxing music is as beautiful as it is intriguing. Birdsong mixes with a slow piano, mystery, looped sounds and atmosphere. What is The Orb, what are .No's field recordings, what is someone's piano? I have no way of telling. I do know that I have to give the new The Orb album a try though, as I had not bothered to give it a listen. It always was too far detached from my musical interests to invest into. The question does remain what will I recognise?

Job Roggeveen returns to Kairos with a fragmented and worked at 'Lo'. Although I wrote in my three reviews in one day, that I was (and am) not able to remember a single composition, I admitted that I liked all three albums in their own way. Not that I will play them often, no, I recognised them for the mind relaxing and intriguing pieces of work they are. 'Lo' moves in and out of The Orb's work, before really taking its place. The softly meandering notes find their place and although at first 'Lo' sounds extremely empty compared to 'The Weekend It Rained Forever', it takes its own place, holds its own and sets the mood of this Kairos more firmly.

I have to pay attention as here somehow 'Lo' gets mixed with Keiko Abe's 'Wind Across The Mountains' played by Nick Parnell. This eastern sounding piece of work pushes out 'Lo' and makes Kairos a lot busier. It is as if the melody is played on bottles, but I suppose it is some kind of xylophone. For some reason the playing sounds hesitant to me, as if Parnell has to think for a single flash what note to play next. There are parts that he's not hesitant at all as well.

Darker notes move in underneath Abe's work. As if something is creping up on a happy gathering in a horror movie. We all know that there will be carnage soon, still the theatre is in suspense and the happy gathering is not to have a clue. The dark disappears though so all are saved? More sounds move in and become dominant. It is Harrold Roeland with music from his soundtrack 'Ceres'. Mysterious work. Long drawn notes, a looped voice?, it is not long before a song takes over.

A longing voice, a soft melody, melancholy mood. It is Stu Larsen with 'Wide Awake Dreaming' from his album 'Marigold'. It is a song like there have been thousands before it and still it works. Dark strings accompany it. The song reminds me of L.A. singer-songwriter Patrick Joseph, only slightly darker. This song is pure chamber pop. At heart there's an acoustic guitar and from there an arranger went to work to create what 'Wide Awake Dreaming' is now. A beautiful, melancholy song.

It's 'Svalbard' again. No matter how different 'Winter Born' is it fits wonderfully well with Larsen's song. It has the same kind of resignment over it. Things are what they are with no hope for change, except to take it like a man/woman and move on. Both works are in the phase of coming to terms with what has happened and cannot move forward yet. Realisation is close by though.

Salvation as well, as an angelic voice is calling me through the final sounds of Paschburg's work. It is Jesus himself singing to me from the cross. High, deep, sincere, but there are no words. So what to make of (t)his call?

A deep and dark music crosses through the singing, calling for my attention. It is as if something is about to start, about to burst loose. But also not knowing how to. So the music keeps turning around in circles, as if not knowing where to go.

.No puts it out of its misery and inserts another piano playing slow notes into the program. It is Niklas Paschburg who returns with higher notes, no less melancholy though. There's a tristesse in 'Arctic Teal' that .No breaks up by cutting into the composition. It seems to stop and start, move sideways and back. If this was a carnival fair attraction everyone, even the most skilled attraction riders would come out nauseated. But what is what? The music becomes more and more African or Marrocan or something. The title 'Tides' seems appropriate with what I am hearing and then somewhere in there Pieter Nooten seems to be hidden as well. There's no telling any longer what I am hearing. Until someone starts singing.

I have arrived at the contribution of Klangstof. Koen van de Wardt's soft voice hovers over the soft music. 'We Never Liked The Outcome' sounds like a professional version of the home recordings of the band Moon Moon Moon that came by in Kairos a few years back. I liked Klangstof's album. Had the LP not been that expensive I would have bought it a few months back. This song is extremely dreamy, ethereal.

The switch to a heavy piano chord, sounding out for a long time is abrupt, almost frightening. Not for long. For that Lorenzo Masotto's 'Yaki Point' is too soft. It is only that heavy chord after the fleeting music that is the cause of the small fright. A soft female voice sings oohs over the piano. A second higher voice joins in as well. The atmospherics created by the piano notes sound out for seconds before new ones are played. It gives 'Yaki Point' an enormous calm and inner strength. There's no rush but also 100% certainty that things will be alright. That is a consolation after what was played before and a nice point to end Kairos, were it not that ...

.... some creepy sound enters 'Yaki Point' over which a high voice sings sounds and other noises are dropped on the whole. Lyra Pramuk is a new name to me, as far as I'm aware. The voice quivers something like Antony, now Anohni, and people knowing me a little better probably now what I am experience right now. I am in intense musical distress. Help! This is really, really scary stuff and I notice my nerves getting frayed in a near physical sense. It is not often that I wanted to turn Kairos off, but this is one of them. I cannot stand this at a physical level. Doe Maar enters my head. "Er zit een knop op je t.v.". That comforting thought soothes me a little, as I cannot give up. There is one more contribution to come. A short one but still.

It is Arvo Pärt  who gets the final seconds of Kairos. 'Kuus Kuus Kallike' sounds like an Estonian children's song set to classical music. What more can I say, except that after 'Witness' everything is a hit in my book.

Wo.

You can listen to this Kairos while reading here:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_550758/


or listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g


Playlist:
00:00 – 04:46  Niklas Paschburg. Husky Train. Album ‘Svalbard’. K7! Records.
15:37 – 15:42  Job Roggeveen. Lo (adapted fragment). Album ‘Gliese’. Excelsior Recordings.
15:52 – 15:57  Job Roggeveen. Lo (adapted fragment). Album ‘Gliese’. Excelsior Recordings.
16:09 – 19:34  Job Roggeveen. Lo. Album ‘Gliese’. Excelsior Recordings.
18:52 – 25:21  Keiko Abe. Wind Across the Mountains. Nick Parnell. Album ‘Generally Spoken It’s Nothing But Rhytm’. ABC Classics ABC 4762838.
22:24 – 23:48  Harrold Roeland. Koen (nieuwe grond). Album ‘Ceres OST’. Self-released.
24:39 – 26:32  Harrold Roeland Twijfel. Album ‘Ceres OST’. Self-released.
26:09 – 30:13  Stu Larsen. Wide Awake Dreaming. Album ‘Marigold’. Nettwerk Music Group.
29:26 – 33:38  Niklas Paschburg. Winter Born. Album ‘Svalbard’. K7! Records.
32:59 – 35:04  Dominique Vellard. Sitio (from Les sept dernières paroles du Christ en Croix). . Ensemble Gilles Binchois ; dir.: Dominique Vellard. Album ‘Vox Nostra Resonet’. GCD P32301.
34:38 – 36:38  Reigns. (Frontplate). Album ‘The House on the Causeway’. Monotreme records MONO-37.
36:25 – 42:03  Niklas Pashburg. Arctic Teal. Album ‘Svalbard’. K7! Records.
39:26 – 39:49  Sary Mousa. Tides (adapted Fragment). Album ‘Imbalance’. Other People OP052.
41:39 – 43:25  Sary Mousa. Tides. Album ‘Imbalance’. Other People OP052.
42:03 – 44:46  Pieter Nooten. freefall (fragment). Album ‘Stem’. Rocket Girl RGIRL115.
44:26 – 47:40  Klangstof. We Never Liked The Outcome. Album ‘The Noise Tou Make Is Silent’. Mind of a Genius.
47:26 – 52:30  Lorenzo Masotto. Yaki Point. Album ‘Frames’. Lady Blunt Records.
51:42 – 59:14  Lyra Pamuk. Witness. Album ‘Fountain’. Bedroom Community.
58:30 – 60:00  Arvo Pärt. Kuus Kuus Kallike (fragment). Album ‘Montserrat Figueras – Ninna Nanna’. Alia Vox AV9826.