The Blues as the expression of a coherent poetics, or the
‘theory’ or how one can explain the meshing of technique with ideas and images,
is based on a limited set of principles. “Midnight Truth: Billie Jo relates the
bitterness she feels over her Ma's death, her father's indifference and the
dust”. In The Blues these principles include the reconciliation of
supposed opposites; repetition and variation, improvisation and planning, dialogue
and monologue and progression and stasis. These principles all meet in the
music of Keijo, with a perpetual memory tuned to The Blues eternally at
play.
In the music of Keijo dissonant forms
communicate with each other; a wailing guitar is surrounded and given fresh
meaning from a mass of insect-like pulses xylophone from deep in an imagined
summertime forest. Attention to low-fi recording techniques gives a blues harp
the scratchy wail of a treasured field recording, while drums and diaphragm-mic
vocals bring the listener to some lonely railway siding in the mean summer of
1935. “Out of the Dust: Billie Jo sneaks out
in the middle of the night with a little money and a little food.” It’s all the
same in the temple of sound. It is not about either/or, it is about the balance
and harmony of each part, growing and forming a single auditory space. The
shadow and the shake, repeated cycles of sounds that expand outwards into
improvised landscapes of color and light. “Gone West: Billie Jo has been on the
train for two days. She's burned up and frozen.” There you find the moment of
your own listening. It is there that time collapses and everything is true and
everything is permitted. But nothing is real.
Keijo produces here seven tracks of transportation.
We go beyond time, here there is but the sound and how it hits you. This is
tinder dry journey folk wandering out of the woods after hard seasons to take
their chances on the road or the coast. Where travel and starvation are better
than hanging on to hope and having nothing change. By learning the tempo of
your own foot fall the heart can be stilled to a relaxed pace and the air
becomes easier to breathe. The Blues becomes the rhythm of your body and you
are healed; to the earth is born a true one.
Shine on.
James Barrett (aka Nada Baba)
Stockholm Sweden April 2013.
www.soulsphincter.com
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