Kivikkat by Kivikkat

This Album is a shamanistic ritual, a trip through time and space, an incarnation of the spirits of balance, and a psychological exhaust, to get rid of the negative, the sad, the painful and depressed. Auditive events on this journey range from Jazz chords, keyboard samples, guitar, absurd sounds, to drums and ancient singing that hits right at the centre of the human ancestral soul. Reaching as wide as the horizon, it all combines into one flow, drains thoughts away and washes the listening ear to new shores.



Hartmut Geerken writes in the liner notes:
“Ukallip Pisia”, the fourth track of the album, is the refrain or the background of the following story: A hunter sees the tracks of two snow hares. He follows them over the mountain. But at some point he loses their track and goes home. As part of a drum dance he tells this story to his family, and his old uncle says to him: you can never become an angakoq because you told us your story. The hares could have shown you the way to a good shaman if you had remained silent.
The often used & repeated word ‘ja’ (yes in German!) In almost all Inuit songs has very positive aspects. Saying ‘ja’ rubs off on the listener, at least on me, so much that it is hardly possible to say no. maybe it has to do with the fact that an Inuit is never allowed to whine or express anything negative. When I see my friend Pauline, how she collapses on stage sobbing and crying and laughing during her shamanistic ritual, I know that the singing, together with the drum dancing, is an important psychological exhaust; the negative, the sad, the painful to get rid of the depressed. This is very similar to blues & jazz. The spirits of balance are called, and in certain moments they seem to appear and become palpable.”

ILK is an artist-run label and collective of 25 musicians based in Copenhagen, releasing new music hybrids, avant-, improv- and jazz related sounds by artists acknowledged as innovators on an international scale.

ilkmusic.com