Mishap and flaw are key to his aesthetic, but craftsmanship and attention to detail the organizing principle.
Musically, Szymon Kaliski is a wise old soul, gracefully venting a thousand years of Polish despondency on his broken-down piano and colouring it grey and greyer with electronics. Mishap and flaw are key to his aesthetic, but craftsmanship and attention to detail the organizing principle.
Little could be sadder than “Not What They Seem,” nor more hesitant to talk about it, while “By a Haze” is a tour-de-force of sculpted, air-borne static pierced gently by ringing tones. “For Stillness” is the sound of a country church abandoned by both its parishioners and God, left decaying in the forest. Peter Broderick and Aaron Martin, both playing strings, assume the narrative voice on separate interludes, Broderick´s optimistic, Martin´s firm.
From Scattered Accidents is a perfect whole, and inserting it in a booklet with sixteen black-and-white photographs by Jan Hoffman mutually complementary. Hoffman records small details in the very big city of Paris, a door handle, a handrail, a bare vine climbing a fence, causing the eye to focus on the seemingly insignificant, just like Kaliski does to the ear.
The Kitchen Label, founded in Singapore by Ricks Ang and April Lee as a design studio in 2005, has yet to release an edition that wasn’t a thing of small beauty. Strictly musically, albums by Fjordne and Ironomi have made the best impression on this reviewer but virtually everything in its placid catalog is well worth hearing.
From Scattered Accidents is available on Kitchen. [Release page]
