At the start of
Afterpoem, the fifth album from New York minimalist composer
Faten Kanaan, the listener is immediately dropped into a disorienting synth loop that resembles a curious rain cloud, washing down a dark street before moving on out of sight. There is rarely a definable beginning or end to her cyclical pieces; each one feels like a pre-existing scene occurring behind a veil through which we only catch brief glimpses. It's a marvelous effect, creating a liminal world that is neither past, present, nor future. Despite its ethereal nature, it is not some sort of hushed, ambient work to sit demurely in the background. Far from it.
Kanaan's songs are active, mysterious, fierce, and even playful. Arriving three years after the similarly mesmerizing though more opulent
A Mythology of Circles,
Afterpoem is a delight of shape-shifting melodies and enchanting transitions. The radiant organ figures of "Florin Court" soon find gravity, leading down an unexpected path before abruptly giving way to the watery half-minute dance of "Snowing." Another highlight is "Votive," with its rolling percussive gait and spectral choir of sampled voices that resembles
Vangelis or young
Enya's more haunted moments. Then there is the spidery "Castling," a nimble harp-like interlude played, like all of
Kanaan's music, manually without aid of sequencers, arpeggiators, or -- from the sound of its rhythmic fluctuations -- a click track. All of this gives her music, even at its iciest, a textured sense of warmth and a beating heart that is sometimes absent in electronically composed music. Described by the artist as referring to the "haze of a poem's intended meaning being abstractly fleeting and barely graspable,"
Afterpoem is surprisingly thrilling and wholly original. ~ Timothy Monger
