Goldmund: Occasus
Western Vinyl

No one does hushed beauty quite as effectively as Keith Kenniff who, when not creating music as Helios or one-half of Mint Julep, channels his energy into producing exquisite Goldmund material. Occasus, the Pennsylvania native's seventh full-length under the alias, couples acoustic piano playing with delicate, synthesizer-rich textures to disarmingly stirring effect. The result plays like the most intimate of portraits, a startlingly personal sound that renders into instrumental form deep feelings of longing. The album title, we're told, refers to “downfall, end, or the rising and falling of heavenly bodies,” and in the latter regard especially the title fits: the tone of Occasus is inarguably heavenly, its ethereal pieces suggestive of transcendence and capable of inciting reflections upon the immensity of the universe and how infinitely small a role we play in it.

I don't profess to know how exactly Kenniff produces his Goldmund material, but I suspect some degree of real-time creation is involved. The fifteen pieces don't come across as improvisations in the purest sense of the word, yet there is something about them that suggests spontaneity plays a central role. At this advanced stage of his recording career, Kenniff no doubt trusts his process and is confident enough in his own abilities that he can sit down with a mere sketch of an idea in his mind and translate it into a two- to three-minute setting that lesser producers might labour for hours if not days to achieve. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that Kenniff creates and records the material first and then formally notates it, rather than adopting the conventional practice of writing a piece first and then putting it to tape.

A hushed, chill-inducing sense of serenity is established at the outset by “Before” when sparse piano chords float across a reverberant cloud of synthesizers and strings, the stately sounds conveying both grandiosity and humility, as strange as that might seem. Fourteen variations on the theme follow, not every one as emotionally searing as “Before” perhaps but affecting nonetheless. Gently caressed by wisps of synthetic textures, the piano elements are typically minimal in presentation, while, formally speaking, the compositions are neither hymns nor classical settings yet exude a dignity and supplicating quality that liken them to such forms. Evident throughout are Kenniff's remarkable ear for detail and his sensitivity to the difference a small painterly touch can make, a case in point the descending piano figures that accent the groaning string masses coursing through “What Lasts.”

April 2018