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Before starting the show, I would like to focus for a few seconds on the description .No, in WoNo terms, provides of himself on the Concertzender website and his fascination for radio and music. How as a little boy he would sit in front of the radio, turning the dial and hearing all the strange languages and music. Now, making a programme himself he imagines someone else somewhere in the world tuning in to his show and in his mind's eye sees his younger self sitting there as well, connected through space and time. This is your chance to click on the link underneath this post and to connect to either the younger or the current .No. Looking at myself at that same age, I was done with dialling and picking up strange noises and languages very soon and always returned to that one radio station, illegally broadcasting from the North Sea. I was always humming or trying to sing along to the latest pop tunes of which I still love so many after all these years. My connection with music is 100% internal and in a way this still happens when I listen to the musical experiences presented to me on Kairos. What I try to share with you is the immediate effect the music, drones, choirs, etc., have on me. What you are about to read are my instant, primary reactions, with almost no editing afterwards, except typos or a missed/unfinished thought. Nothing else is changed. The difference between the creator, .No and the listener, Wo..
The familiar intro sound is replaced by soft, layered music that comes to me like the wind, more a breeze that cools while I'm laying outside in the shade on a hot day. Soft breezes that come and go. The soft music is by Yukon Onoma and totally different from the pre-released single I listened to in the fall. This music is of the kind that soothes and does not confront. All through 'Alas! Alas!', a song by Lyenn, 'Staggering Heights' is mixed. As I do not know either, I can't tell what is what. it appears to be a successful mash up, as I can't discern anything out of place.
After five minutes the Lyenn song takes over. It becomes clear how good the two belong together. For all I know, without reading the programme information, it could have been a five minute intro. This is the second song of Lyenn's new album 'Adrift', on Kairos and it appears I have truly missed a beautiful album as it had not reached me at the time. 'Staggering Heights' is not a happy song. There is a difference with Lyenn's previous album. The songs on it sounded as if Lyenn was sorry for himself. Not so in this song. This is a song sung from strength. Solid and strong, even if sad or in despair.
The song leaves me for electronic pulses or music. It is Yukon Onoma with 'If Any Man Have An Ear Let Him Hear'. Soft and layered, long-held notes from a keyboard/synthesizer wash over me, slowly changing my mood. The breeze has been replaced by a warm bath. This music is all around me, covering me whole, without any risk of suffocation. A voice starts some kind of incantation or prayer. Distorted in sound, slowed down making it hard perhaps impossible to hear what is said. Because I'm not listening, just registering, as musically the song expands as well? My impression of Yukon Onoma is changing fast. Did I hear wrong last year, besides tipping .No on the record for Kairos?
Or is the change I like another song? Richard Bolhuis' House of Cosy Cushions comes in somewhere in Onoma's song. A pump organ accompanies a male voice singing in a Pink Floyd kind of way, as on 'Atom Heart Mother' or 'Meddle', before the band found its true voice(s). 'The Mad Sisters' has that feel and thus sounds very familiar. The unexpected church organ sound and the cello that come in as an instrumental chorus are quite surprising.
Chaos comes next. Human voices, bird songs, flowing water, it all can be heard, with music hidden away deep behind the sounds of nature after the humans have left the forest. Like a ghost a choir comes in, slowly moving towards me, only to disappear again, making it even scarier, had I been alone in that fairy tale forest. Where did it go? Next a musical version of a chainsaw moves in, as an extremely long bowed note on a violin. Looking at the Kairos playlist, things get rather confusing. There's Med Gen. Brook for nearly 20 minutes, Howard Skempton, thrice and all slightly adapted. At the end Remy van Kesteren shows up as well. So, my best guess is that the natural sounds are all from the album 'Terrapy' and the "ghost" choir is the work of Howard Skempton by The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge. I suppose the bird song, I hear blackbirds singing, and the long, long held notes must be Med Gen. Brook (Medical General?) too. I also suppose that this music is supposed to soothe me, make me calm and relaxed but it is having a rather opposite effect on me. Not because it is ugly or anything like that, no, because I do not have the rest to undergo minute after minute of almost nothing. Perhaps because I have just played 'Drunk Tank Pink', the new Shame album, not Kairos recommended, loud on my headphones, with its mix of postpunk and Talking Heads. The contrast is quite huge. When the choir returns I know my ordeal is about over. Again it is as if it hovers above the ground. The mix made by .No seems to suggest a clear cut between the earth and the nether world. As if there are short breakages between dimensions and choir song is leaking into where it does not belong. The effect is rather dramatic. So, is the music I'm hearing after the second choir piece, what Med Gen. Brook truly made? Are the "earth" effects even on the record, as they have totally disappeared here?
A harp enters after a third choir excerpt. Remy van Kesteren moves over the long composition and gets centre soon. The chords are a joy to hear after twenty minutes of basically non-music. Underneath the harp an electronic sound hovers again giving the harp an otherworldly quality. 'Waves' is slow, majestic and very, very serious.
Slowly more music is mixed into the empty composition 'Wave' is. Time to pay attention because usual something happens in Kairos in moments like these. Faten Kanaan returns to Kairos with 'Hesperides'. This music is like striding towards an alter or throne. It is electronic music but with a soul. When a repeated sequence starts, I do not really know what to make of it. Underneath it a countermelody suggests change but for that the repeated sequence is too dominant.
Slowly it fades out and is replaced by another composition in which the music rolls towards me, except that now I see it as waves on the beach, rolling towards me, receding, towards me, receding, ever onwards. Although this is perpetual motion, the bigger picture shows inertia. Nothing ever changes. I'm in a place I cannot stay in too long. Despite Faten Kanaan returning over 'Devils on the Back Posh', I know I have to move on.
Paul Haslinger, who returns to Kairos as well with a track from his album 'Austerlitz', does not truly change the mood. Not even Fink does, despite that there's singing in this Kairos, for the first time* (not counting the ghostlike choir from Cambridge). The mood remains so downcast. I hear my girlfriend downstairs working from home, having fun with her colleagues, laughing, shouting, a world away from the music I'm listening to. Outside snowflakes keep falling, covering over the path I made this morning. Fink is moving his music towards some kind of climax it seems but decides not to or not yet. I notice I do not care. I can't get into the right mood today.
Underneath Fink something's changing. Electronic music moves in. Again a long held note, perhaps even a choir that is looped. Over it violins come in and a dark, deeply mixed voice as if coming to me from the bottom of the deepest ocean. Deep under the obvious contribution (Högni) the drone of Highland Spokesman is continuing, before Remy van Kesteren is allowed to come forward to close this Kairos with a second composition from his album 'Amber', 'Walking Across The Atlantic'. Although not the deepest ocean, there you have my idea on Högni's contribution anyway.
This wasn't my easiest Kairos ever,
Wo.
* P.S. It wasn't, reading over my notes before publishing. It certainly felt that way by then.
Here's the link to this Kairos:
https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_579361/
This month's playlist:
00:04 – 05:21 Yukon Onoma. ALas! Alas! Album ‘Until the Northern Light Takes Us’. Munich Records.
00:37 – 00:44 Lyenn. Staggering Heights (fragment). Album ‘Adrift’. Near Gale Records – WasteMyRecords.
00:53 – 01:00 Lyenn. Staggering Heights (fragment). Album ‘Adrift’. Near Gale Records – WasteMyRecords.
01:09 – 01:15 Lyenn. Staggering Heights (fragment). Album ‘Adrift’. Near Gale Records – WasteMyRecords.
01:48 – 01:54 Lyenn. Staggering Heights (fragment). Album ‘Adrift’. Near Gale Records – WasteMyRecords.
03:26 – 03:32 Lyenn. Staggering Heights (fragment). Album ‘Adrift’. Near Gale Records – WasteMyRecords.
05:03 – 09:13 Lyenn. Staggering Heights. Album ‘Adrift’. Near Gale Records – WasteMyRecords.
08:35 – 15:05 Yukon Onoma. If Any Man Have An Ear Let Him Hear. Album ‘Until the Northern Light Takes Us’. Munich Records.
14:44 – 18:53 Richard Bolhuis. The Mad Sisters. House of Cosy Cushions. Album ‘Bliss’. Outcast Cats.
18:24 – 19:06 Howard Skempton. The Flight of Song – The Arrow and the Song (fragment). The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Album ‘Flightof Song’. Guild Music Ltd, GMCD 7213.
18:46 – 35:15 Med Gen. Brook (slightly adapted). Album ‘Terrapy’. Pantheon.
19:49 – 20:18 Howard Skempton. The Flight of Song – The Arrow and the Song (slightly altered fragment). The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Album ‘Flightof Song’. Guild Music Ltd, GMCD 7213.
30:06 – 30:33 Howard Skempton. The Flight of Song – The Arrow and the Song (altered fragment). The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Album ‘Flightof Song’. Guild Music Ltd, GMCD 7213.
34:10 – 35:14 Howard Skempton. The Flight of Song – The Arrow and the Song (fragment). The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge. Album ‘Flightof Song’. Guild Music Ltd, GMCD 7213.
34:54 – 39:49 Remy van Kesteren. Waves. Album ‘Amber’. Snowstar Records.
39:02 – 43:29 Faten Kanaan. Hesperides. Album ‘A Mythology Of Circles. Fire Records.
42:33 – 46:40 Vanity Productions. Devils on the Back Posh. Album ‘But All Spiked’. Posh Isolation 242.
44:05 – 45:36 Faten Kanaan. Hesperides (altered fragment). Album ‘A Mythology Of Circles. Fire Records.
45:25 – 48:33 Paul Haslinger. Mirror. EP ‘Austerlitz’. Fire Records.
47:57 – 53:43 Fink. That’s how I see you now. Album ’Bloom Innocent’. R’Coup’D/DGR.
52:39 – 59:57 Highland Spokesman. Sounds 03 three (fragment). Album ‘Sounds’. Pantheon.
53:43 – 55:42 Högni. Dragdu Mig. Album ‘Two Trains’. Erased Tapes Records eratp103.
55:55 – 59:57 Remy vanKesteren. Walking across the Atlantic. Album ‘Amber’. Snowstar Records.
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