Anagnorisis. Asaf Avidan

Everything points to Asaf Avidan will remain a one hit wonder in my country. In 2012 he scored a giant hit with the remix of his song 'One Day (Reckoning Song)', so with thanks to remixer Wankelmut. A song I reviewed in wonder and a bit in awe on this blog. How time passes, is a fact I'm confronted with once again. It is already over seven years ago that I saw Avidan and his band play live here in Haarlem at Bevrijdingspop. A show that showed me that his music was much more than just that one song. And then I forgot about Asaf Avidan.

Hence, I have no clue whether other albums have been released since, I suppose so, but Anagnorisis reached me recently and is playing steadily since. Agreed, I do not hear a big hit, but then I wouldn't have recognised 'One Day' as such either. What I do hear is an album that is very much worthwhile listening to. It is an album that contains a lot and is varied.

Of course, I have to start with that voice again as it is so extremely typical for this singer. High and strange as if on helium the whole time, at times hardly male. There is a deeper register as well, but less used. In fact the voice is so change, it also liberates the artist. Musically there's no need to stick to conventions because of it. The artist uses this freedom on this album.

Anagnorisis is a Greek word, used in the context of the works of the ancient Athens philosopher and teacher Aristotle. The translation/description suggest a form of catharsis leading to a higher level of knowledge and deeper understanding. The moment when the character in a play transcends from ignorance to knowledge. Asaf Avidan took himself off the road after ten years of touring. He went to live in the Italian countryside and pruned his songs like the olive trees around him. Cutting away ideas to make the songs better and more resilient, just like the farmers did with their olive trees.

Promo photo

On Anagnorisis I hear a multitude of voices and as I somehow thought, they are all Asaf Avidan. So many different voices. This fact is almost astonishing, yet makes the album so much more intriguing because of it. The listener will also hear a host of influences coming by. The "hey-ho's" of 10s folk bands, the saxophone sound of Bowie's 'Black Star' and typical background vocals in Bowie's style and all in the same song. 'Earth Odyssey is an extremely rich song, the kind of song that I can listen to the whole day.

At the same time there are a few songs like I heard on the Door EP of Dutch singer Luwten. As I described them yesterday on this blog, songs that are at the outer fringe of my musical tastes and mostly remained inside. Anagnorisis is different in the sense that there are songs on the album I think are tremendously good and so intriguing to listen to, as so many things happen on the album, within songs like 'Earth Odyssey'. That makes it easy to listen to the songs on the album inspired by artists like Billy Eilish or Kanye West, e.g. 'Rock Of Lazarus', reading the bio that came with the album.

Slowly it dawns on me that once again I'm listening to a great, new album in 2020. Because of my enormous legacy it is too hard to push away my all time favourites, but having stated that, I notice how some albums this year make a true impression. And Asaf Avidan was not among the most expected ones to be in that list. Already I'm dreading having to push ten albums into a top 10 only a few months from now. In the mean time I am listening to that melancholy horn solo in the title song and am slowly melting. I'm impressed, there's no other word for it.

Wo.


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