Sober Maal. De Mannen Broeders

Een sober maal anno 2024 is zonder twijfel iets geheel anders dan een sober maal in 1786 of 1850 en zelfs in 1914 het jaar waarin de Vlaamse vluchtelingen voor oorlogsgeweld in de kerk van Middelburg sliepen die op de hoes zijn te zijn. Dat is de tijd waarop De Mannen Broeders terug kijken. Sober Maal is dat helemaal vanuit een muzikaal standpunt gezien, want behalve de drone die een kerkorgel als grondtoon kan hebben, is de muziek die de teksten omlijst onvoorstelbaar en zeer waarschijnlijk niet om aan te horen voor een persoon die leefde zonder elektriciteit, quinoa en gemotoriseerd vervoer. Laat staan in een kerk te horen was.

Dat alles maakt Sober Maal bepaalt niet een minder indrukwekkende plaat. Tonnie Dieleman, a.k.a. broeder Dieleman en Colin van Eeckhout, zanger van Amenra slaan hier de handen ineen onder de naam De Mannen Broeders. "Aangetrokken door de donkere kant van het leven, verdriet, rouw en een voorliefde voor ritueel" zijn ze aan de slag gegaan op basis van (religieuze) teksten van onder andere priester en kunstenaar Omer Geliet, al bekend van eerder werk van Dieleman.

In vijf opnamedagen, met hier en daar assistentie, namen zij het album op in de doopsgezinde, 18e eeuwse kerk in Middelburg. Geen heel rare keuze, gezien de achtergrond van de teksten. Het kerkorgel werd een onderdeel van het proces. Verder zijn een piano te horen en de banjo van Tonnie Dieleman, al dan niet met een strijkstok bespeelt.

Als broeder Dieleman heeft Tonnie Dieleman mij al verschillende keren ver uit mijn comfortzone getrokken met een reeks platen die niet anders dan speciaal kunnen worden betiteld, 'Uut De Bron', 'Komma', ik heb niet een andere plaat in mijn collectie die maar bij benadering hierop lijkt. Totdat Sober Maal hier aan is toegevoegd. Van Eeckhout is voor mij een nieuwe naam. Metal is voor 98% mijn ding niet. Van metal is hier geen spoor te bekennen, van muziek over drones des te meer.

Opnieuw is het de mix van soberheid en weelde die mij als eerste raakt. De Mannen Broeders weten met heel weinig veel te bereiken, zoals in de vooruitgesnelde single 'Verteere Heel'. Een grondtoon en een floortom of basdrum, dat is het wel. Toch weet het binnenkomende banjo spel van Dieleman het nummer op zijn kop te zetten. Over impact van muziek gesproken.

Het album kent ook besproken woord bijdragen. Het klinkt als een preek. De teksten zijn van Omer Geliet Mijn vrouw hoorde het bij thuiskomst van haar werk en vroeg zich luidop af of ik mij aan het bekeren was. Daarmee is de sfeer van Sober Maal goed omschreven. Dit is kerkmuziek, maar dan anders. Het gaat ook over verdraagzaamheid, zoals in 'Grafschrift' en de vriendschap tussen priesters van een andere vorm van christendom. Iets wat (ook) in 1786 niet gewoon was. Ook hier wordt weer met minimale middelen absolute schoonheid gecreëerd. Een paar pianonoten van Pim van der Werken is al genoeg. Als dit nummer geen plek krijgt in Wino Penris' 'Kairos' show, dan weet ik het ook niet meer.

Kerkmuziek komt ook sterk naar voren in het prachtige koor in 'Onze Lieve Vrouwe'. Als de plaat een hoogtepunt heeft, dan is dit het wel. De hemelpoort staat wagenwijd open en laat de engelachtige zang zo nederdalen op de gelovigen en ongelovigen gelijk, zonder aanzien des persoons. Zoals het hoort. Het nummer volgt een derde preek en start met een drone en mannelijke samenzang, waarna de dames zich erbij voegen. De galm van de kerk is een extra instrument dat prachtig is gevangen in de opname. Ik heb geen idee waarom dit nummer mij zo raakt, maar het is van absolute schoonheid.

Zonder de muzikaliteit van de betrokkenen te kort te willen doen, is het heel bijzonder om te horen hoe met minimale middelen een maximum effect kan worden bereikt. Sober Maal is een album van grote en sobere schoonheid. Het doet zijn titel volledig eer aan, want een sober maal kan zeer voedzaam zijn.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

Je kunt Sober Maal hier luisteren en bestellen:

https://mannenbroeders.bandcamp.com/album/sober-maal

Kairos 133, October 2021

May 2022 and Kairos of October 2021? Yes. Does it matter? No. Once again Wout delves into Wino's radio show on Concertzender and reports on his ideas, emotions, thoughts, associations all called up by the music presented in Kairos.

The familiar opening tune calls out to me. All mystery in 16 seconds and what lies in wait behind it? As usual I do not have a clue and submit myself to the music, while committing myself to the programme.

Soft music takes over. Slow notes on a keyboard ring out over a bed of atmospheric music. I'm not familiar with the music, although I recognise the name Faten Kanaan as an artist that came by in the albums presented to me. The label is Fire Recordings, so I'm not surprised to hear 'Mist & Madrigal' come by on Kairos. Many releases of the label have found their way to the show. Fire and Kairos are a good match and it is easy to hear why. The music does conjure up thoughts of mist and the mystery that can surround mist.

Something else, far less harmonious, takes over. The contrast is even a little disturbing. The quick notes totally in opposite of Faten Kanaan's music. Time is fleeting, and this music is as well. The music is like the hands of the clock. Seconds, minutes and hours all get their own piece in 'Time' by Poppy Ackroyd. Whether this is intentional, I don't know of course and had I thought of the association had I not read the title? Of course not. Fact is that 'Time' can be listened to in this fashion. Fascinating. Another association I have is with Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' in the way the fast parts are played, on, I think, a piano.

A dark sound moves in with over it piano notes, fairly sparse. The mood is consistent I notice. This music fits well together, despite the double tempo playing having been left behind. 'Sleeping Deer' is a piece by Mary Lattimore. A synth joins in a bubbly, propulsive manner. It creates the tempo that was abandoned anyway. What to make of it however? Is this butter or cheese? This can only be ascertained when you have seen or tasted either before. With 'Sleeping Deer' it's hard to say. The work comes close to being non-music. There is a melody involved but so sparse, so radical that I have a hard time getting through the 6.30 minutes it lasts. What I can't get my head around, is what Mary Lattimore wants to share with me. Atmosphere, a semi, non-pleasant one, sure. But beyond that?

A guitar takes over. A slow, stop-start rhythm. A female voice, hazy, hoarse starts singing. A tinkering, slow piano under a vague chorus. This is different but I like it alright. It's not a female voice at all. It's Sufjan Stevens & Angelo de Augustine who return to Kairos. The soft song is mysterious. The musical accompaniment is kept so small. The slow musical melody is angelic and beautiful in both a gruff as angelic way. Something impossible to obtain. 'Olympus' has it though.

What comes next? Simple Minds' 'Belfast Child'? No, it could have been though. This song has the exact same mood, though created by more traditional instruments, like a droning pump organ or something like it. A bagpipe for instance. It's an organ alright, I notice when the chord changes. It is 'Dew' by Bridgid Mae Power (Fire Recordings again). This is a traditional song alright. Folk at its most elementary. Beautiful, yet unapproachable. Warm and so cold. That is what 'Dew' is, very probably like dew on a cold morning is.

This month's poem is in English. Inspired by the sea. The music must be Ben Lucas Boysen's 'Nocturne 4'. It was woven into 'Olympus' somehow already. Now the slow and atmospheric keyboard, synths and atmospherics slowly works itself to a grand staging. A full drum kit joins giving the composition a giant oomph. Had a trumpet been provided, it could have been a new and more modern work by Ekseption, had its founding members not died that is. Boysen combines the classical with symphonic rock here and in a successful way to. Like it should. It doesn't matter from which side you approach symphonic rock it seems, it works both ways.

Next I hear church chanting come in. Fleeting, from so far away, as if coming to me from another universe. Until the male voices join in. This music of course ought to have been cancelled, coming from Russia and its orthodox church at that. Well, this Kairos comes from October and what did we know then? Nothing. 'We magnify Thee, Most Holy Virgin Theotokos (from the Service of the Baptism in Russia)' also indicates babies and what do they know? Nothing. I suggest we leave this chant be.

More slow notes fill my ears. Beneath it long held atmospheric notes can be heard. This could be a mysterious intro to a rock song and it can be something that continues on its own for half an hour, as sometimes compositions on Kairos do. What is this instrument?, I do wonder. It is a harp. This is Remy van Kesteren, an artist releasing songs faster than anyone can keep up with it seems. 'Waves' comes from his album 'Amber'. It is slow, mysterious and feels like being in the dark, reaching for the light which is, somehow within reach.

Somewhere the song changes or melts into something called 'Here We Are (Once Again) by Okkyung Lee. Another harp, that's easy to discern now. Underneath it other extremely slow playing instruments. A clarinet? The darker notes, coming by every so many measures, will be bass strings of the harp, I guess. To enjoy this music, I would need more rest in my body, which I notice I do not have enough of right now. I'm not submitting to this mood and music. My brain is on and not in a meditative mood.

Effortlessly the music moves into something else. It could be Akkyung Lee changing his song to incorporate another instrument, violins. It is not, however. What I'm listening to is 'Valley Of Tears' by Tom Snijders. Although, where the mood is concerned, this song is totally in line with the previous one. So is it a harp, that I can't relax myself on? As this music totally releases me from whatever occupied my brain just now, immediately. What am I writing?, I notice myself thinking. You enjoy listening to violins?! Am I getting old? No, I just totally enjoyed 'Wet Leg', one of the best albums recently released. The contrast to 'Valley Of Tears' is huge and yet this also works for me. The soft and relaxed but above all modest mood Tom Snijders presents is simply beautiful.

Another violin enters the last, muffled piano notes of Snijders. Also soft, yet by comparison harsh and biting. It's almost weird to notice how through comparison something soft containing long-held notes can be so loud, simply because of what came before. The composition is called 'Articulated Silences (part 1)'. It's also strange how this title articulates my first impression. Of course the effect quickly dissipates. The long-held notes create their own rhythm and atmosphere. I can imagine to mentally surf over the notes, catching wave after wave on an endless ocean without a beach in sight. Stars of the Lid has been in Kairos before and again claims its rightful place it seems.

To be replaced by world music. An exotic, to my ears, wood instrument whether bowed or blown introduces a female singer, singing deep from her throat, more sounds than words sometimes. The guitars, acoustic, give 'El Sikameya' a modern feel. This recording is less traditional than the song is. I always have a hard time to listen to this, but in this context, it feels totally right.

Some sort of modern church music takes over. With a reverb on the voice giving the impression to be recorded in a huge cathedral, catching the voice from a huge distance, using the acoustic qualities and ambiance of the big church fully. There are instruments involved in Gavin Bryars' 'Incipit Vita Nova' but they are totally subjected to the vocals. As I have written several times before, repetition is unavoidable over so many years, this music is not for me. Yet, I can hear the inner beauty in this music. Just like I can imagine myself sitting in that cathedral. Eyes closed, letting the music and singing grab me fully. At this moment someone starts using an electric saw or something like it outside. Speaking of dissonance within total tranquillity.

Kairos closes with another artist who has found his way fairly recently to Kairos for the first time. The mood in music hardly changes, despite faint percussion and digital sounds. It is the Moritz von Oswald Trio's 'Chapter 3'. What to truly make of it? Slowly the music fades out and Kairos comes to an end, before I can really make up my mind.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to this episode of Kairos here:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_629469/

 

The playlist:

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

00:11 – 03:23  Faten Kanaan. Mist & Madrigal.
Album ‘A Mythology of Circles’.  Fire records.

02:37 – 08:47  Poppy Ackroyd. Time. Album ‘Resolve’, Poppy Ackroyd, Joe Quail, Mike Lesirge, Manu Delago. One Little Indian Records.

08:17 – 14:56  Mary Lattimore. Sleeping Deer.
Album ‘Collected Pieces II’. Self-released.

14:34 – 17:41  Sufjan Stevens & Angelo de Augustine. Olympus.
Album ‘A Beginner’s Mind’. Secretly Group.

17:31 – 18:08  Ben Lukas Boysen, Nocturne 3 (fragment).
Album ‘spells’. Erased Tapes Records.

17:58 – 21:25  Traditional. Dew. Brigid Mae Power.
EP ‘Burning Your Light. Fire Records.

21:09 – 27:57  Ben Lukas Boysen. Nocturne 4 . Album ‘Spells’. Erased Tapes Records.

21:27 – 22:32  Poem by Esther Rozenboom. Voice and recording by Esther Rozenboom. Private recording.

27:23 – 29:18  Anonymous. We magnify Thee, Most Holy Virgin Theotokos (from the Service of the Baptism in Russia). Znamenny Chant. Album ‘Hymns to the Mother of God at the Moleben’. Publisihing Department of the Moscow Patriarchate.

29:03 – 33:58  Remy van Kesteren. Waves. Album ‘Amber’. Snowstar Records.

33:09 – 39:19  Okkyung Lee. Here we are (once again).
Album ‘Heaven On Fire (various artists)’. Fire Records.

34:51 – 35:05  Fragment from poem by Esther Rozenboom, adapted by Wino Penris.

38:48 – 44:16  Ton Snijders. Valley of Tears. Album ‘Solo (2)‘. Munich Recrds.

43:58 – 49:23  Stars of the Lid. Articulate Silences (part 1).
Album ’And their refinement of decline’. Kranky.

49:18 – 52:05  Traditional. Istikhbar Sahli. El Sikameya.
Album ‘Atifa’. Editions Le Mur du Son.

51:44 – 57:52  Gavin Bryars. Incipit Vita Nova. (David James, countertenor; Annemarie Dreyer, violin; Ulrike Lachner, viola; Rebecca Firth, cello).
Album ‘Vita Nova’. ECM NEW SERIES.

57:34 – 59:57  Moritz von Oswald trio. Chapter 3 (fade-out).
Album ‘Dissent‘. Modern Recordings.

Kairos #120, August 2020

It's that time of the month again and our Wo. is running behind on his monthly dose of Kairos once again. While .No is actively promoting the November Kairos, Wo. is finally getting round to the August edition. Is it as if he's trying to escape his daily spoon of cod liver oil, like in this youth? No, rest assured, dear reader, we do not force our writers into anything. So, let us sit down, relax, and see what musical adventures .No presented to us in the August 2020 edition of Kairos. If you click on the link below to settle and listen, you can follow, slowly but surely, what the presented music did to (the mind of) our Wo..

The familiar intro morphs into a piano, added to by a harp. I was just about to write, not a piano again, doing my own take on the Rosella savoury rice TV add in Australia in 1977,to be distracted by the harp and later on a violin. This is a sad melody, containing a load of emotion. The violin as it were is speaking to me. I have no clue what I'm listening to, nor where it is from or how old it is. Looking it up, the composition is Astor Piazzolla's 'L'Histoire Du Tango: Café 1930', played by Larissa Groeneveld & Gwyneth Wentink. And here I sit having always thought a tango was played with an accordion. Also I associate a tango with a different rhythm, but then what do I know about tango's? What I do notice is that this is music able to move me and touch me. Like I said, that violin speaks to people and thus me. There may not be a singer, a lyric, I can almost grasp what is being said to me.

Okay? Trickling water? A cold wind? Birdsong? What is this? Spring? Glaciers melting? The sound of the last snow scooter riding on/gliding down the slope reaches my ear as well as a giant wasp or mosquito. Irritating and loud, almost drowning out all else. Irritating it is. The composition is called 'Brook' from someone/something called Med Gen.. Help!, I notice I have to pay attention for 17 minutes plus. The sound of a bow being pulled over strings is repeated over and over. Dark, slowed down?, male voices sing wordless sounds over the bowed sounds. Listening intently with eyes closed I hear the looped instruments and the echo of the voice adding to the primary sound. After a while the singing fades out and the basic track of the brook returns. Slowly a second part builds itself up around a female voice, I think and perhaps slowed down as well. Musically a whole swarm of mosquitoes is unleashed into my ears. Closing my eyes I feel myself slowly losing consciousness. As a meditation 'Brook' certainly functions well. Unless I'd fall asleep, so I open my eyes when noticing to slip away. Come to think of it, at a campsite next to a brook, I wouldn't fall asleep in a hundred years because of the sound of trickling water beside my tent and no other sound present any more. The mind closes in on the sound of water, focusing, keeping my brain focused and awake. A scene from my life and certainly familiar to you, whether a brook or the sound of a mosquito or something else in that silence of night.

It is only now that I notice that the brook is a sound through which .No has mixed other compositions. First it was 'Cradle' by Lyra Pamuk. From circa 18 minutes onwards it is a song in a language that I do not understand. Not a single word. 'Be'ya Sa'di' by Anna Homler and Alessio Capovilla. There's a low drone, like a highway in the background, over which traditional instruments are played and Anna Homler sings in the language I'm not familiar with. When the brook returns, the song is slowly faded out. The birds have gone to bed. I hear the sound of the wind coming through the music, but notice that it comes from outside my room, real wind.

Over the brook a piano plays. The return of Eleni Era to Kairos and the blog. Her high voice meanders over the slowly played piano chords and notes, while electronic sounds hover in the background as a Poltergeist in that movie of old hovering behind a tv screen or wall. Eleni Era sings 'Beautiful Moon' in her mother tongue, Greek. Once again I'm struck by the beauty of her music. I have written it a few times before but now I'm going to act. Tonight 'Rise Love' will sound in the living room and not remain solely on my external hard drive.

The slow moving song is swept away by another droning sound. Louder sounds move in and out like a wave on the beach. Med Gen. is allowed to return with another minute long contribution, 'Harbingers Of The Storm'. Somewhere behind the electronic sounds Thor can be heard, doing his thing in the distance, rolling like a crashing wave through the air. The lighting in the distance I can imagine myself easily. Med Gen. does capture the oncoming storm musically in sound. In that sense it is well done. The tension of not knowing how bad the storm will be comes through alright. So well done, but why would I want to listen to this in my spare time? That is a question I cannot answer in a positive way. The rain sets in. The storm has reached me. Slowly, I'm musically soaked to the bone, have no place to hide under and I find myself wishing it was over, fast.

And it is, a keyboard,a piano and a plopping, slow bass guitar enter my ears. I have the idea I should know what it is I'm listening to but can't get my finger around it. Let's take a peak. But of course, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. .No has taken a shine to 'Ghosteen', Cave's latest album. So have I, but also have learned that 'Ghosteen' is not an album to play every day. Very likely because the album is Cave's elegy for his ghost teen, his son that will never get beyond 15, having died from falling of a cliff near Brighton. In 'Hollywood' all is atmosphere with Nick Cave singing over the atmospheric sounds that he's waiting for "his time to come", "for peace to come". In a way this is 2019 church music. The "aah aah aah" is completely sacral in a totally modern way. It is the movement of deepest feelings, whether with a religious intent or not. In the second part of the song a rhythm is started like an old steam engine train. Slowly going forward, gathering speed while chugging away. Not that 'Hollywood' accelerates, it is the suggestion of gathering speed that is sufficient. Nick Cave is on a run down California's Pacific coast, fleeing from demons and memories. There's nothing punk or rock and roll left in 'Hollywood', nor in the rest of 'Ghosteen' at that. With this album Nick Cave has sublimated his musical travails of the 2010s. It is the bass guitar that in part 3 presents a last eruption of things that once were. It is in this part that the exorcism takes place towards "piece of mind". His voice higher, totally different from his usual baritone. Of course I cannot know what Nick Cave meant with this lyric in his deepest, inner self, can only give you my interpretation, which I have. To my ears 'Hollywood' and 'Ghosteen' is an impressive tour de force by one of the greatest artists of this moment.

Next up is an even higher voice. The kind one can hear sing in a church. The accompaniment is bare, almost non existent. A few single notes here and there on an acoustic guitar, perhaps harp, perhaps plucked violin. It is this final option that, if forced, I'd choose. A violin comes in for a solo. Notes that can deeply move, like the opening song of this Kairos does as well. It is the style of singing that my ears highly object to. I just can't help it. Even when I hear that the quality of singing is truly good, my ears can barely stand it. But again, 'Nana: Duérmete, Niño, Duerme' is a beautiful composition as a whole.

What's next? The pan flute from "Who Pays The Ferry Man'? No, this is far more serious. A few notes, at times cascading over an atmospheric repeat of the cascading notes, turning into another round of cascading sounds through the ever newly created loops of loops. Funny, but it does deserve some sort of closure, which is does not really.

Slowly the loops do fade away to be replaced by a serious piece of music. An orchestra playing extremely serious music that on the other hand could be part of a movie. It is not hard to be touched by the downcast mood. I suppose .No made this Kairos in the weeks of July when the beautiful spring had all of a sudden left The Netherlands to be replaced by wind and rain and less warmth. Otherwise I cannot explain the overall downcast music of this Kairos. Listening to it in early November, still thinking every once in a while: "where did my summer go"?, I totally get the mood though in these fast shortening days.

Kairos ends with another sound of the Highland Spokesman who replaced the sad sounding  'Motet From After the Rain'.

Wo. 

You can listen to this Kairos here on Concertzender:

https://www.concertzender.nl/programma/kairos_567307/

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 Kairos #120:

00:03 – 06:40  Astor Piazzolla. L’Histoire du Tango: Café 1930. Larissa Groeneveld & Gwyneth Wentink.
Album: ‘Chanson Exotique’ (STEMRA 200692).

06:02 – 23:44  Med Gen. Brook. Album ‘Terrapy’. Pantheon.

07:13 – 16:16  Lyra Pamuk. Cradle. Album ‘Fountain’. Bedroom Community.

18:40 – 22:18 Anna Homler & Alessio Capovilla. Be’ya Sa’di.
Album ‘Vasi Comunicanti’. Gang of Ducks GODREC0024.

22:48 – 26:49  Eleni Era. Beautiful Moon. Album ‘Rise Love’. Louvana Records.

26:21 – 37:11  Med Gen. Harbingers of the storm (fragment).
Album ‘Terrapy’. Pantheon.

34:18 – 48:31  Nick cave Hollywood. Album ‘Ghosteen’. Ghosteen Ltd.

48:27 – 52:57  Manuel de Falla. Nana: Duérmete, niño, duerme.
Album ‘Montserrat Figueras – Ninna Nanna’. Alia Vox AV9826.

52:35 – 56:50  Highland Spokesman. Sounds 3 three (fragment).
Album ‘Sounds’. Pantheon.

55:39 – 59:36  Barry Guy. Motet from After the Rain (fragment). City of London Sinfonia, Richard Hickox. Album ‘Ancora!’. NMC D032.

58:33 – 59:57  Highland Spokesman. Sounds 1 one (fragment adapted by Wino Penris). Album ‘Sounds’. Pantheon.