Sara-Jane Summers - Kalopsia

One of my favourite radio programmes is ‘Late Junction’ on Radio 3. Over the years that I’ve listened to it, I’ve been introduced to many kinds of music. Some of you reading this will know that it is under threat of being reduced to one night only. There’s a petition you can sign. During the years I have been listening, the way in which we access music has changed in ways that would have been hard to predict. It’s so much easier to access what we know we like. ‘Late Junction’ provides the excitement of the unpredictable and unexpected. Sarah-Jane Summer’s compositions have been part of that adventure for me when her ‘VIRR’ album of improvisations was presenter Fiona Talkington’s Album of the Year in 2017, Sarah-Jane Summers is a classically trained musician, specialising in viola and violin. She has a masters in Norwegian folk music and plays the Hardanger fiddle. She also plays fiddle in the old Scottish Highland style. Using these traditions as a starting point, she uses contemporary and extended violin techniques in her compositions, taking them beyond music as we recognise it and into a sonic experience. Working with Juhani Silvola, a folk musician and composer based in Oslo, she has created an eerie and atmospheric series of instrumental pieces that are intriguing and mysterious. I am very aware that these will not be to everyone’s taste. There’s a vibration to them that has to have a personal resonance and connection. This is a strange and terrible beauty. Perhaps there’s a message in the title of the album. ‘Kalopsia’ is defined as the delusion of things being more beautiful than they are, and if you as a listener surrender to that thought you’ll enjoy a rich sonic experience. Each track takes its name from from a word that describes a feeling, a sensation, a sound, a state of mind, and the sleeve notes and the definitions are an education in themselves. ‘Petrichor’ (Greek) describes the scent of rain after a long period of dry weather, ‘Hiraeth’ (Welsh) is about homesickness and exile and longing, ‘Widdendream’ (Old Scots/Old English) is a frenzied nightmare. There are fourteen tracks, fourteen words and definitions to consider alongside the sounds they inspire. There’s something spell binding, even Gothic about the experience of listening to this album. I found myself transported to abandoned buildings and old industrial spaces, with waterwheels not waterfalls. Deserted landscapes with crows and gulls crying, not the sweet song of the thrush or blackbird. This is adventurous listening. Take the risk.

Track Listing:-

1 Lypophrenia
2 Scintilla
3 Oneirataxia
4 Widdendream
5 Petrichor
6 Susurrus
7 Meraki
8 Hiraeth
9 Reveille
10 Sciamachy
11 Phosphenes
12 Kenopsia
13 Lethophobia
14 Tacenda