Kairos 126 , 4 February 2021 on Concertzender

Yes, I am running behind ever more, I know. There's so much music to write on. All but excuses for making other priorities for the blog. Not so today. The Kairos of February is tackled today. Let's go and see what .No presented the world five months ago.

Believe it or not, but a mystery has been unveiled for me today. All having paid close attention in February already know. Look at the first item on the playlist and you know too if you haven't noticed. The composer and the name of the intro has been made known!

Soft piano tinkering takes over, backed by some atmospheric sounds. Turning the music up, I want to hear what is happening, an acoustic guitar is there and a dark voice in the style of Serge Gainsbourg with even more Gauloises or Gitanes behind him then he could muster. The language, I have no clue. It could be anything, including just sounds. The composition, ' Tsakoniko', by Hairetis Harper, slowly but surely becomes more solid, mostly because of the more aggressively strummed guitar and the more demanding singing. Slowly I can imagine the language to be Greek.

Another sound moves over Harper's speaking way of singing. A long held note, with a drone behind it, from which an organ sound rises up. Nils Frahm is a modern composer returning very regularly on Kairos and thus this blog. This song is from the album 'Tripping With Nils Frahm'. Now my notions on reading the word tripping, bring hippies, San Francisco, Jefferson Airplane, etc., to mind, not what I'm currently listening to here. But then I'm sure that every individual is able to trip on anything he or she likes. It just takes a little more imagination the I can muster, to imagine someone tripping on the serious church organ composition Frahm plays here. But then speaking in tongues is also a Christian tradition, so who knows? Let me leave it at that, but could have written on here about ideas on other forms of psychedelic, religious experiences I immediately associate with because of my former association. I notice a violin joining the music, making things a bit wilder, but...

...my guess is that this no longer is Nils Frahm and that we are slowly moving on through one of the grand mash ups .No is famous for, at least on this blog he is. If I'm correct what I'm listening to is a Nick Cave/Nicholas Lens song called 'Litany Of The First Encounter'. A song that could have been part of his last album, recorded with Waren Ellis, 'Carnage', with Cage singing himself. This is quite nice actually.

The next song I dare to take credit for it being on Kairos. Reb Fountain is a singer, born in the U.S., but since young childhood from New Zealand. With her self-titled album I discovered her in the fall of 2020 and tipped .No for Kairos. Since a beautiful remix of 'Hawks & Doves' has been released as well and a new album announced. 'Hawks & Doves' is a beautiful song, acoustic but so firm nonetheless. Reb Fountain created a sort of monument for her song. So erect, yet so alive. Her voice sort of puts a spell on me. She captured me alright. I can only hope that in 2022 she can cross the world for a tour.

A demanding piano takes over. A soft, breathy woman's voice starts singing. It has a Japanese association for some reason. The song is from 'Mooncy & Tobias III', 'Sericum'. Again I'm listening to a song that is quite alright. Mysterious, and a bit strange, sure, but quite beautiful and holding it's own against 'Hawks & Doves' with ease. So why did I truly not like this album when listening to it on its release? I have no answer, except that I should be listening to it again some time.

The change is a bit mysterious. What is it that I'm presented with? From the musical chaos a violin raises itself, accompanied by a piano. The mood of the previous two songs is continued in this instrumental song called 'Weary Remains' by Blear Moon. I can play music, once upon a time wrote songs, I listen to loads of music, write on music but never for the life of me could I present music in the way .No does. Who thinks up these sequences that work so well and is able to mix them and tweak them in these ways?

Because somewhere in all this Philip G Anderson & Laura Masotto's 'Moments' is hidden and my guess is that the little musicál chaos on the edges is Blear Moon, while the song I hear is 'Moments'. And now you know why I was asking all these questions, with even more urgency than you may have imagined. The mixing genius at work this is.

A little chaos again and out of it rises a female voice singing 'ooh ooh", over a soft piano. It is Dutch singer VanWyck, who I discovered not long after I discovered Reb Fountain. 'This Is That Time' is a song from VanWyck's corona album. A few new songs, a few reworked ones, stripped to the bone. This approach puts focus on her voice, making it come out in spades. A tip is always given not expecting anything, as this is not my programme. I'm just pleasantly surprised when a few months later a song pops up. Just listen to the sequence of songs and I hear perfection in choices.

And a harp takes over, pushing VanWyck totally aside. No subtleties here. Some birds, crickets?, faintly in the distance hidden deeply underneath the harp. It is Hairetis Harper returning with a second composition from his album 'Draft', ' Meadow'. When the acoustic guitar enters, it takes over the centre position in the song. It changes the mood as it is played more focused it seems. The harp is dreamy, slow, the guitar's touch is far more secure and down to earth and direct. Finally also a piano enters and then the guitar drops out. As if the giants in a troll movie have moved out of the forest back to the mountains.

I could have known, the piano is not a part of Harper's composition. It is Keith Jarrett performing live in Budapest. (I hope that people from abroad wanting to see him there, did not buy tickets for Bucharest, as some football fans appeared to have done.) 'Part VIII' is a beautiful piece of music. Sensitive, the keys touched so lightly it seems, that the music hovers through my room, slowly settling into my ears and brain.

When a female's voice moves over the piano notes, I take it that Jarrett is being interrupted. Then a man enters as well, I was thinking Nick Cave, but is it? That roughness in the voice is missing. But, yes, it is. Again that L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S. album that I have never heard of before. I can't call it classical music, but for someone who started out as a self-destructive post-punk artist in The Birthday Party, a song like this is beyond classical music. (I could not listen to Cave in the first two and a half decades of his career.) The duet with a, for me at this point, unknown female singer is utterly beautiful.

Cave and Lens' music is serious but nothing compared to what I'm hearing next. This is serious, modern classical music alright. Tōru Takemitsu. 'The Night', from ‘Toward The Sea II for alto flute, harp and orchestra’ is what I'm hearing. All deep tones, dark, slow with an eruption of notes here and there, as if dancing over the music, the alto flute taking the lead, supported by the lighter sound of the harp. The orchestra is left with the task of creating that dark mood.

Slowly someone else if morphed into the music of Takemitsu, Nils Frahm. Some more tripping, I'm afraid. 'Ode To My Own Roof'. There are two options to look at this song title. 1) In the metaphorical sense as an ode to roof as the house as a whole, protecting you, making it possible to live sheltered, warm and safe and 2) the psychedelic form where Frahm detaches the roof from all else and sees it as a sole entity moving in front of him. Listening to how serious this music is, I do opt for number 1. The composition takes a whole 10 minutes and I'm afraid it's a bit too long to my taste. Too little is happening to keep my attention span at the task at hand. Especially because by now I know which song closes this Kairos and I can't wait for it to start.

It is a double tribute. Pau Dónes, singer, rhythm guitarist and songwriter of the Spanish band Jarabe de Palo, died last year at the age of 54. On this song, the title song from the band's first, album 'La Flaca' from 1996, I wrote my first article for the first issue of WoNo Magazine. And that issue, the very first one, was published in February 2001, 20 years ago this year. Started as a bit of a joke, with no idea that we would continue for 16 years, let alone that and 20 years later there still would be a blog with WoNo in its name. Yes, it was my suggestion to add 'La Flaca' to Kairos, if .No would like it, as a tribute to our work of the past 20 years. The Cuban inspired slow rock song rings in my ears, bringing tears to my eyes. It was sort of chance that I ever heard the song, as it almost never happened. Read the story in that first WoNo Magazine. The link can be found in February of 2021, to make it easy for you here: http://wonomagazine.blogspot.com/2021/02/wono-magazine-20-years.html. Hearing 'La Flaca' was the beginning of a relationship with Jarabe de Palo that will last a life time. My favourite Spanish band ever, no doubt about it, stopped in its tracks in May or June 2020. A double tribute 'La Flaca' is. Sorry, .No but it is the most beautiful song on Kairos ever.

Wo.

This is the link to listen to this Kairos:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_593799/

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

This is the playlist of February 2021:

00:00 – 00:16  Kairos Tune by Wino Penris.

00:07 – 06:45  Hairetis Harper. Tsakoniko. Album ‘Draft’. Same Difference Music.

05:52 – 11:28  Nils Frahm. Enters.
Album ‘Tripping with Nils Frahm’. Erased Tapes Records.

10:46 – 15:35  Nicholas Lens/Nick Cave. Litany Of The First Encounter.
Album ‘L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 483 9745.

15:21 – 19:24  Reb Fountain. Hawks & Doves. Album ‘Reb Fountain’. self-released.

19:16 – 22.30  Moonchy & Tobias. Sericum (slightly adapted by Wino Penris).
Album ‘Moonchy & Tobias III’. Tiny Room Records.

21:49 – 23:48  Blear Moon. Weary Remains (fragment).
Album ‘Winter Journal. EP ‘Winter Journal’. ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ Records (Pantheon).

22:48 – 25:56  Philip G Anderson & Laura Masotto. Moments.
EP ‘A Quiet Evening’. Lady Blunt Records.

25:35 – 26:39  Blear Moon. Weary Remains (fragment).
Album ‘Winter Journal. EP ‘Winter Journal’. ΠΑΝΘΕΟΝ Records (Pantheon).

26:29 – 30:48  Van Wyck. This Time That Time.
Album ‘God Is In The Detour. Self-released.

30:40 – 34:38  Hairetis Harper. Meadow. Album ‘Draft’. Same Difference Music.

34:18 – 39:32  Keith Jarrett. Part VIII (applause removed).
Album ‘Budapest Concert’. ECM2700/01.

39:07 – 43:17  Nicholas Lens & Nick Cave. Litany of the gathering up.
Album ‘L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 483 9745.

43:08 – 46:49  Tōru Takemitsu. The Night, from ‘Toward The Sea II for alto flute, harp and orchestra’. Album ‘20th Century Music for Flute and Orchestra’. NAXOS 8.554185.

46:27 – 56:30  Nils Frahm. Ode Our Own Roof.
Album ‘Tripping with Nils Frahm’. Erased Tapes Records.

55:38 – 59:57  Jarabe de Palo. La flaca. Album ‘La Flaca’. EMI.