28 November 2023
Being a rock/metal listener for a very long time, I’m familiar with a lot of bands from almost every genre from crust to djent. Therefore, when I have music conversations with unrelated friends, it is usual that I am asked how I keep so much encyclopedic information on my mind. Being a metal listener is like being a member of a cult. You start somewhere, and over time you get lost as you go deeper. All in all, I have no complaints as this is a happy situation of getting lost. My main concern is that: While we are lost in these waters, how much of the other auditory beauties do we miss out?
The album I’m going to write about now is one that I caught by chance. Although it contains parts with an alternative rock feeling, it has nothing to do with rock. Kaada is actually a solo work. All words and music belong to John Erik Kaada. John is a multi-instrumentalist and he can play many different musical instruments. He is also interested in authentic instruments. That’s why he used many different instruments in the album, such as Tannerin, Kalimba, Stoessel-Laute etc. Of course, there is also a large list of musicians playing these.
John started his musical career in a band called Cloroform, which is still active. In the following years, he focused on film music and that is how he gained his real fame. He won an award at the Norway International Film Festival in 2002. Music For Moviebikers is his 3rd solo work. It was released by Mike Patton’s company Ipecac. And, this is how I discovered it. In fact, they later became friends with Patton and released an album under the name Kaada/Patton, followed by a DVD in which they played their album from start to finish.
The album is like a soundtrack without a movie. Of course, we should not think of something like film scores based on classical music in the style of Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore, performed by orchestras of several hundreds of people. We are talking about minimal and experimental music. The vocals used are very calm. In some places, vocalists served as an extra instrument by accompanying the music wordlessly. Our keywords in terms of feeling are; sadness and melancholy. Kaada does not promise entertaining, cheerful music. On the contrary, it has a meditative and heavy atmosphere. One of the features that I like very much is that the names of the songs and the music suit each other very well. It created a perception in me as if each song was the title of a movie and the composition was made according to that movie. Of course, this is an element that fuels the pleasure of listening.
The album was mixed in Wrongroom which is Kaada’s own studio. Mastering was entrusted to Frank Arkwright. It’s pretty good in terms of production. The work, which has a very attractive and stylish cover design, consists of a total of 13 wonderful songs. The opening track Smiger, Julia Pastrana and Daily Living are very beautiful pieces of music. But one piece in particular is very precious to me: Celibate. I can’t tell you how much I love this song. Celibate is a word used for the clergy and means lonely, single (for religious reasons). I guarantee that when you listen to the song, you will feel this loneliness in your veins. Kaada is one of the brightest, most talented musicians to come out of Norway. Definitely give it a chance.
9/10
