Meltem from Erato by Kairos Collective / Michiel van der Meulen

MELTEM
Hüseynî karşılama

‘Meltem’ combines instruments and colours from adjacent Eastern Mediterranean regions that share a past but have grown apart under the more fragmented political conditions of today. I think (but am thus far the only one) that there is also an element of rock in the improvisation section, in which the violin and tambura are the equivalents of the guitars of Jimi Hendrix and Keith Richards, respectively.

The Macedonian tambura I use is ideally suited for modal accompaniment. It has only two courses, so other than melody you can play successions of dyads (‘two-tone chords’), adding something between a hypnotic drone and simple counterpoint. I think of the instrument as a pencil, which lets you colour the music. However well suited for this purpose, the Macedonian tambura is a tempered instrument, and ‘Meltem’ needs to be played microtonally. I asked Remco Busink, who built my instrument in the 1980s, to add some frets and I think it works very well.

The second line has a modulation that gives me the feeling of spiralling downward, like a bird of prey charging in slow motion. It is a feature that I like in ‘Kozan’ on Michalis Kouloumis’ self-released debut album Soil (2014), which is why I named the piece after one of his ensembles. Meltem (or Etisian) winds are hot, dry, northerly summer winds that blow across the Aegean Sea under conditions of high pressure over the Balkans and low pressure over Anatolia.

Kairos Collective is the occasional ensemble that Michiel van der Meulen assembles to record or perform his contemporary modal music. Kairos is the personification of the right moment, the time to act or an opportunity to be seized, perfectly encapsulating the spirit and atmosphere of the collective's sessions.

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