Goldmund - Layers of Afternoon

A Closer Listen

Nick Prideux’s cover image is a perfect summary of the music found within.  A window is open to a sun-dappled vista: placid sea, beckoning island.  A light breeze causes the curtains to billow while a young woman takes a languid nap, or simply lies on a bed, daydreaming.  The outside represents the future, the adventures that wait for us when we’re ready; the inside is an invitation to luxuriate in the moment while sinking into a reverie of the days gone by.

Goldmund (Keith Kenniff, who also records as Helios and Mint Julep) explains that the album is about the experience of time, from fleeting moments to valued days, and the ways in which time may either drag or fly, depending on one’s experience.  Even in a single day, there may be Layers of Afternoon.

“The One Who Stands Still” launches the set with piano by Kenniff and sumptuous violin by Scott Moore.  Time may be the one who stands still, or it may be a person in time, allowing time to flow around them.  When one does take the time to be still, one notices minute changes: the movement of the moon, the encroaching tide.  This peaceful music invites one to slow down, to consider one’s environment and to reflect on how rapidly we tend to move through our days.  “Our Times” also lends itself to wider interpretations, from the straightforward (the times in which we live) to the metaphorical (the individual experience of time) to the spiritual (Ecclesiastes’ “there is a time to every purpose under heaven”).

Time is passing while one listens; a fitting experiment might be to listen fully, and then to estimate how much time has passed.  (Those who are time-strapped might do this with a single track.)  Has one lost track of time?  Has one begun to fret about losing time?  Might one’s mind begin to drift, unmoored in time?

“We Begin Anew” suggests a specific instance: a new year, the beginning of summer, the start of a new relationship.  In contrast, “Long Memories” suggests, as Alan Parsons sings, that “time keeps flowin’ like a river to the sea.”  The former track ends and the latter begins with a faint suggestion of choir.  One thinks of the monks marking and naming the hours, but losing track of time during prayer.  Over it all, a thin bedsheet of melancholy, recognizing that moments can be remembered, but that once they are gone, they are gone forever.  The sparse notes and sudden ending of “Touch of Silver” exemplify this experience.

Will we squander our next afternoon, working straight through the day; or will we find time for contemplation?  Is today a day we will remember or quickly forget?  Must we always be active in order to “make the most of our days,” or might we allow them to unfold at their own pace?  As the cover suggests, even in paradise there is time enough for a nap, allowing one to appreciate time even more when one awakes.  (Richard Allen)