Kairos 127, 4 March 2021

Will I ever catch up? No, I'm a half year behind. As I have heard no one complain I will just continue where I was before the summer

The familiar openingstune morphs into a dark drone, reminding me of, I think, 'Echoes' of Pink Floyd. Submarine like sounds bleep a few times over the drone. Isn't that in 'Echoes' as well? Harrold Roeland is an old Kairos hand by now. I can't help but wonder how different his works are. 'Nachtlied For Joshua' is almost non-existant, imperceptible.

Bas K. takes over, with his self-released single 'Down'. 'Down' is a hybrid work hanging somewhere in between a traditional singer-songwriter style and modern beats. Of course, the sound is modern, the songs intention is decades old. Not unlike Belgian artist Low Hill, who in the past made it to Kairos as well. For me this is on the edge of what I can listen to where modern music is concerned. Almost tumbling over the edge.

Anna B. Savage comes next, were it not that 'Nachtlied Voor Joshua' in the track list is at it for over 42 minutes. So undoubtedly some dark sounds pop up every once in a while. Like what happens after 'Down'. What to call Roeland's composition? Avant Garde? Modern classic? Ambient? Minimal music? I simply do not know. It is not experimental. For that it is too soft, too gentle. When the composition mildly fleshes out, I would like to pose that a church like element enters the work. A sort of reverance added to by flashes of the otherwordly. Anna B. Savage enters Kairos in a very treated way. Shards of her music, cut up, distorted, fly around. Is it .No or is Savage? I don't know, as I did not find my way into the album fast enough and left it behind at the time. 'Steady Warmth'? Not here, right now. Sorry. Coldly mysterious is a better description.

Harrold Roeland returns. Still, long held notes hover over Kairos. The drone has disappeared. Lighter notes permeate the composition. They almost disappear but seem(?) to remain only in their most essential form, near silence. There's no other way I can describe what it is I'm hearing. The notes disintegrate as it were, leaving the hint of the note behind only. 

An organ joins and strange, mysterious sounds, perhaps suggesting something blowing in the wind. A voice comes in. A high voice for a man, a deeper voice for a woman. What is it? I do not dare to take a stand here. It is a voice like the guy from City and Colour or fellow Canadian Patrick Watson. For certain is that 'Hello' is extremely mysterious.

All the mysterious sounds disappear, leaving a piano only. The voice returns, the noises return as well, as if a space invasion takes place. 'Star Trek' revisited.

Harrold Roeland is revisited again as well. He truly is the centerpiece of this Kairos, while I start appreciating what I'm hearing more and more. Here I was playing a great, new punk record while cooking dinner and now this, right after dinner.

A female voice comes in, asking me: "Where are you"? Slow experimental notes are played on a piano. When it stops an orchestra comes in, albeit on an individual level. Only a few of the instruments make their appearance. Notes of intense beauty reach me. Again Nick Cave and Nicholas Lens' L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S.' makes it to Kairos. I remember being impressed a couple of months ago and that I am once again. This has nothing to do with the Nick Cave of the 1980s and 90s. With his most recent records? There the jump to this music becomes somewhat smaller. What Cave and Lens' individual roles are, I have no way of telling, only that this combination works.

Hello, Harrold!

Yes, this is music to meditate on. I haven't done so for years and years, but I sense the feeling I had at the time immediately.

A female voice comes in. Something Eastern, my mind tells me. A language I can't place, as in not at all. A drone lies at the bottom of the music. Over it only minor changes in notes take place. It is the vocal melody that is fully in the lead here. Jozef van Wissem & SQUERL, 'Hal', from a movie soundtrack. A rhythm comes in, the singing becomes more spiced but the rhythm goes as easily as it came. Van Wissem sounds Dutch, SQUERL decidely not. I can't place this in any way. This music is totally out of my boundaries but not unpleasant as such.

Harrold Roeland comes to my rescue. The deep dark drone is back. Listening more intensely I can hear it waver, like a pulse. Should you care to ask, I think we are back at the start of this Kairos. At the point where the composition almost disappears into the void, into space even, the big nothing.

Lens and Cage return as well. A, screeching, violin and a piano, followed by a hobo or bassoon, I'm no connoisseur here. The music definitely has classical undertones. The female singer is far more modern in her way of singing. A question springs to mind. Do I have the patience to listen to the whole album? Or do the Kairos snippets work best for me? As I do not have the album, the latter works best for now.

The song stops but some noises reach my ears. Just as easily it could come from the outside. It doesn't though.

Van Wyck returns to Kairos and I can take a little credit for that. A piano, a voice and the effects present in the studio or recording tools Van Wyck uses when recording. It is all that is needed at times to create a beautiful song. No matter how "small" 'We Do Not Speak' is, it is all that needs to be there. Piano, voice, some echo.

That mysterious noise returns. What is it? I have no clue. Perhaps nothing more than electronically looped noises.

A violin cuts in, over the noise. The new contribution to Kairos plays on over the noise, that only slowly fades out. Nick Cave sings this time in 'Litany Of Godly Love'. "I eat children", Cave sings. Okay? The melody only changes when a female voice joins him. She gets all the changes, as if Nick Cave needed to be set free to change his chord. "I need you", they sing together, underscored by the musical freedom she offers Cave.

We have said goodbye to Harrold Roeland. Two excerpts remain. One from Moonchey & Tobias. Recently I was surprised by a song of the duo. Here I know exactly again why I did not like the album. The childlike voice is simply not for me.

The end of this Kairos is extremely short. A little over a minute but extremely surprising. Rotterdam noise band Rats on Rafts get a very short snippet in this Kairos. In 'Prologue. Rain', Japanese sounds are played over guitar noises mixed deep into the background. A perfect, because mysterious, ending to this Kairos.

You can listen to this Kairos here:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_597868/

Playlist:

00:00 – 42:44  Harrold Roeland. Nachtlied Voor Joshua (A).
Album ‘Nachtlied Voor Joshua’. Self-released.

02:31 – 05:56  Bas K. Down. Single. Self-released.

10:20 – 11:58  Anna B Savage. Steady Warmth. Album ‘A Common Turn’. City Slang.

16:03 – 21:45  Frederik Valentin. Hello ft. Fine Glindvad.
Album ‘0011001 & 0011000’. Posh Isolation.

23:01 – 28:30  Nicholas Lens/Nick Cave. Litany Of Divine Absence.
Album ‘L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S.’. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 483 9745.

31:55 – 36:24  Jozef van Wissem & SQUERL. Hal.
Album ‘Only Lovers Left Alive, OST’. Sacred Bones Records.

40:54 – 46:17  Nicholas Lens/Nick Cave. Litany Of Transformation.
Album ‘L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S.’. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 483 9745.

45:35 – 52:24  Harrold Roeland. Nachtlied voor Joshua (B) (fragment).
Album ‘Nachtlied voor Joshua’. Self-released.

46:40 – 50:48  VanWyck. We do not speak.
Album ‘God Is In The Detour. Self-released.N

51:46 – 56:30  Nicholas Lens/Nick Cave. Litany Of Godly Love.
Album ‘L.I.T.A.N.I.E.S.’. Deutsche Grammophon 00289 483 9745.

56:26 – 58:52  Moonchy & Tobias. Dies Festus.
Album ‘Moonchy & Tobias III’. Tiny Room Records.

58:48 – 59:57  Rats on rafts. Prologue, Rain.
Album ‘Excerpts From Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths’. Fire Records.