Remember when you started moving? That twitch. That spark. That very first nerve impulse, waking you up, pulsing through your body, simultaneously alien and organic. Like a herd of impalas trekking through your bloodstream. You can’t stop it really, because it is happening. And so you are there, launching into “Kenja” at full sprint -- primal, tribal, visceral. Driven by the percussive waves of Natiho Toyota’s rolling tom-toms. Responding to the plaintive cries of Mindjuggler’s ethereal howls. Twisting with Samuel Hallkvist’s synthesized guitars and dodging his pointillistic jabs.
It takes you across continents, over oceans, merging Scandinavia with Japan somewhere in the laboratory of the heart, Hallkvist’s inner alchemist measuring it out, Toyota and Mindjuggler piecing together the elements, setting them aflame, watching them burn like a spiritual bon fire. Into the sky those elements climb, mingle, dance like ash.
Somewhere up there, in the atmosphere, a new thing evolves, somehow akin but also dissimilar. That new thing, “Suzuran no Wakare,” tumbles back to you, tumbling from the sky and into the valley, coursing along the sensual curves of the earth. This new thing, it finds its footing, then changes course. You try to trace it, try to follow it, keeping pace then losing track. It toys with you, playfully, like a child, full of mischief, embracing you then leaving you to gently tumble, too, down into a field of lilies.
It’s all soil and damp earth, there, smelling strong, like ancient blood, caressing your skin like the hands of an invisible lover. But only for a moment, and then you are up and moving again, chasing that rhythm, those ever-shifting melodic punches and deep swells. The alchemist, Hallkvist himself, he knows you. He wrote this story, for you.
It’s a gift, like when Glass placed Einstein on the Beach. You didn’t know he was there, but when you found him, it was glorious, celebratory. “Kenja” and “Suzuran no Wakare” are glorious and celebratory like that, two sides of you, fumbling with adolescent curiosity yet absolutely certain that you are moving toward something. Something of minimalistic beauty. Something mysteriously complex. Something you can’t define, but you know must be.
And so you keep moving.
credits
released September 21, 2018
Samuel Hällkvist - guitars, MIDI programming, arrangements
Natiho Toyota - electronics, MIDI programming, arrangements, percussion
MINDJUGGLER (on Kenja) - voice, keyboards, hand claps
“Samuel Hallkvist would give a psychologist making a study of guitarists’ behavioural patterns no end of research
material.”
/Herald Scotland
I am Samuel, a Swedish guitar player living in Copenhagen, Denmark. I play music with hints of jazz, country, metal, noise and blooming cherry trees....more
"...this music takes you somewhere between reality and some other place that's almost beyond words, a place that feels alien yet very familiar at the same time." Samuel Hällkvist
Wild West banjo players and square dancers just retired from a tour with the latter incarnation of King Crimson and moved to the countryside outskirts of post-modern Denmark after a short trip to Mars Samuel Hällkvist