Chikiss: "Autumn Gold"

We were lucky enough to be given a pre-release copy of the new mini-album from Galia Chikiss (above, center).  It's called "Autum Gold" (Zoloto oseni) and is quite possibly one of the best - and quietest! - things we've heard for a while.

We've written about Ms. Chikiss before, offering both music and a sketch of Primorsk, the northern coastal town from which she operates.  Chikiss in fact works between two projects, both the outfit you see here and an experimental ensemble known as 188910 - named after the region's postal code.

These two enterprises come together in a lot of the offhand videos which can be found online, showing Chikiss in domestic surroundings - and tinkering away with a wide range of people.

These are less performances than tiny documents of a creative space:  friends, a husband, visitors, and the occasional baby wander in and out of rooms.  Hence the nature of Chikiss' appealing blog, which combines musical updates, family snapshots, and a wide range of drawings done by the musician herself.

"Autumn Gold" is part of an ongoing four-part project, with the remaining three sections, understandably enough, being dedicated to the other seasons.  If they're as good as the first installment, we're in for a treat.

This initial recording consists of seven tracks, ranging between two and fourteen minutes in length.  Sparse in their lyrical content, they nonetheless make much use of Chikiss' whispering vocals.  She draws upon her voice not for linguistic content, but to underscore an overarching, ethereal air.

Oooh, aaaah, and so forth.  Vowels galore.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the longest track, which also bears the album's title.  Halfway in, the number stutters to a halt, barely loud enough to claim its presence.  Chikiss' voice becomes a serious of wavering gasps, as if slipping back into swathes of ambient sound.  With punctuated gulps and feebly stabbing chords, the music then starts grabbing at the silence and come slowly, tentatively back to the forefront.

This is a very delicate recording;  it needs to be treated with the same care and attention as the swaddled child or infant-motifs that run throughout Chikiss' drawings, since she is herself a new mother.  We could, of course, extend these parental parallels further, but the dry workings of academic prose are unused to such territory.

Welcome to a world of diapers, doodles, wind-chimes, and weddings.

Oooh, aaaah again.