I Saltations
Here is an album which was made by a number of wonderful musicians (the core
band of Ben Madeley, Toby Couling, Max Goff; and an expanded cast too
expanded to list here, full credits below) – and which is substantially authored by
my friend Jon Klaemint Hofgaard. He named it with a word I had never heard:
'Saltations', we learn, may refer to a sudden large-scale mutation in biology, or a
sweeping, leaping dance step. Ah, a fine word then.
Obviously here is music to which we may dance, in our jerky and broken ways at
home; or shyly, with an outward beautiful awkward reservedness while we're
flying excitedly and just for this moment so free inside, with friends and would-
be lovers or actual lovers in whose presence we may still be shy. It's too dark to
see anything much in the photos afterwards, we needn't fear looking silly after
all.
II On Deviated Directness
Pop songs that pull us in different directions at once maybe are good pop songs
because life pulls us in different directions at once. Emotions as we feel them are
layered, un-simple. And life as the accrual of these ambiguous experiences is, we
all know, a big mess:
horriblebeautifulmortifyingedifyingrottensublimehappysadhappysadsadsad, oh
and it's long and it's short god knows, the words are useless even squashed
together. But music can do better with this.
A thing to admire here. As musicians we may say 'I want to write direct,
immediate songs' and recoil, mortified, should we ever get close to achieving
same. What we might hope to achieve is this kind of directness that doesn't
preclude emotional complexity, or require us to work only with the most familiar
materials. Let us approach things directly, we ask, but from an angle. My feelings
for you are real...
III On Light and Time
Trees loom large over 'Saltations', gobbling light and time, yes breathable air in
return, comfort and shelter from storms of a senseless world too. A place to have
a sandwich, gentle rustling of leaves, green breezy joy. The bogman isn't staked
down like Thin Amren, he walks the tops of the trees, light as light, light as time.
Saxophones and sunshine, a baby born at a strange time, London and islands of
the far North. Mirror, Million, Milkman, Mel, light as light, light as time.
(About the author: JH plays drums in Rutger Hauser and runs micro-label The
Lumen Lake.)
