Ahnstern
Joy Of Nature : The Empty Circle part I :
Swirling sounds of disquiet and catharsis (PT/Azores,2008)***
This is Joy Of Nature’s first official release, part one of a trilogy corresponding to the alchemical Nigredo called “The empty circle”.The subtitle of this works –“a theatre lost in the vast abyss of starry skies”, like the liner notes say,
“...came in a lucid dream when we grasped the idea that this world in which we live our day-to-day lives can be compared to a small theatre in a vast abyss of starry skies. Human life is just so small, but, at the same time, the divine in Man has an infinite nature. If we could turn away from the, sometimes pathetic, theatre, where we play roles every day, not realizing that…. This album is about a world of disquiet, in which a catharsis should be done. To gather the impurities, realize their nature and build something pure from there.”
This was the inspired vision behind the album, with a goal to express that helped very much to make an album sound much more like an inspired concept with its own life compared to the previous cdr.
The conceptual nature of it makes the music hang better together with a vision that breathes live and structure into it, a creative process that has the inner need in it’s visions.
At first, an image is created out of the dark which also remains visible for longer than before, so that the appearance becomes a tool with forms, colours, shapes and movement. On the next two tracks, this sounds as if the image is taken out of the water. More and more the acoustic improvisations, which are often played on instruments with hanging-close together sounds, like bowed psalter, zithers and such, create a form of theatre on its own, a sort of podium theatre in the dark with a spotlight on it growing in size, until it unfolds a whole scene, just like Japanese theatre or opera or so, but then as mostly instrumental music. There are serene, somewhat meditative moods, but occasionally also ‘the human circus of life’ is presented in a field recording on the background, before continuing with its own stage improvisational expressions, which is spoken word on its own, even when silent with words, -although there is a bit of spoken word-. The message expressed seems to be unheard by the public, or not strong enough to open up it’s message to a practical tool that could open up the doorway to wider visions and unfolding possibilities, so that a sad feeling remains, expressed by flutes and psaltery which are like staring into space with sadness. The end track even brings in the Roccoco drama of an opera, a flash of some seconds, confirming human nature’s lost efforts to retain something for a bigger mass, before being able to enjoy and share visions of full grace...
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