Sundaze 1301

Hello,  we'll start the new Sundaze year with Keith Kenniff an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and electronic music producer. You may have heard of him under his Helios or Goldmund monikers. He's been very prolific this last decade and i thought it was time to share some here, this week Helios, next week Goldmund.

Helios is gorgeous moody electronica, sparse, minimal feel but very heavy and emotional. This is music you could fall asleep to, but wouldn't want to because you can't stand missing a second of it. The piano pieces are really something, plenty of natural talent, bringing feeling across in the slow, meandering beat patterns...  N'Joy

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which compositions belong to Goldmund and which to Helios?
"It’s a pretty clear line for me; the Goldmund material is basically just solo piano, and even though I use some piano in Helios, there it’s more centered around traditional song structure and electronics/guitars and beats. The Goldmund material is written and recorded very quickly, and there is a lot of improvisation involved; but the Helios material is really detail orientated, and usually is pretty measured, compositionally"

.Keith Kenniff is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and electronic music producer. He composes ambient/electronic music under the moniker Helios and post-classical piano music under Goldmund (the latter’s music once described by Ryuichi Sakamoto as “...so, so, so beautiful...”). He is also half of the indie band Mint Julep, and ambient project "Hollie & Keith Kenniff". Keith is also a composer for film, television, dance and performance art. In 2010 he began the record label Unseen.

At a young age, Keith Kenniff started playing drums, guitar and bass. His musical journey took him to the prestigious Berklee College of Music, where he graduated with honors in 2006 with a B.A. in percussion and composition. In 2004 'Unomia', Keith's first album under the moniker Helios, was released followed by the critically acclaimed album ‘Eingya’ in 2006. His third album ‘Caesura’ was released in 2008.

Keith also records and performs music for solo piano under the name Goldmund for which he has six releases on Unseen Music, Type Records and Western Vinyl, including the most recent album ‘Famous Places’. Keith has toured and performed extensively throughout the US, Europe Japan and Canada.

Keith has an indie rock/shoegaze band with his wife called Mint Julep. In January, 2011 they released an EP called "Adorn". The band will release their first full-length album, "Save Your Season" in 2011. The Kenniff's also have a children's music project, Meadows, (inspired by the couple's young son), whose debut longplayer, "The Littlest Star" was released in the summer of 2011.

Keith Kenniff's music has been featured on programs for NPR, the BBC, and can be heard in a number of documentaries and films, including celebrated indie filmmaker Harmony Korine's film 'Mister Lonely', a trailer for the 2009 film "Revolutionary Road" by Academy Award winning director Sam Mendes and his track 'The Chosen' has been used on America's Next Top Model. Keith has also composed music for web advertising by clients such as Facebook, Honda, MTV, Canon, T Mobile, American Express, Audi, Levi's, AEG, Vinamilk, and Christie's.

In 2011, Kenniff's "Orchestral – Goldengrove v2" was the featured soundtrack for several Apple commercials promoting its iPhone 4S.

"I try and issue a lot of restraint in the material I write, but music is a way (sometimes the only way) for me to reflect on, or release, my emotions fully. I think invariably when I write music or perform there's this wellspring of feeling that I might otherwise suppress that desperately wants to come out."


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Those who mistake ambient music for an endless tapestry of unwavering atmosphere, pleasant yet indistinguishable, should be handed as an argument to the contrary this CD by a recent signee to Merck's rapidly expanding roster. Through 13 tracks of inarguably pretty music, Keith Kennif displays the musical equivalent of a genius screen actor, able to send a million moods and messages with the most subtle of facial gestures. The opening pair of songs, "Velius" and "Cullin Hill," point to a blissful treat which sits on just the right side of new age symmetry (particularly given the former's live glistening piano treatment). But only eight beats into "Nine Black Alps," the sensation is irreversibly altered by a single, mournful bass note which rumbles like Hades against the bucolic tone that lead up to it. Unshackled, Kennif continues to roam, drifting into circular beats on "Two Mark" before wandering off into weightless asphyxiation on "Samsara." He even allows for the organic sound of faint acoustic guitar and piano to join his endless travels on "Light House," giving a moment of real world clarity at the eye of this hallucinogenic work. Few could get away with a singular ghostly voice transmission without implying a stretch for ideas, but by the time he reaches the ninth song, "Suns That Circling Go," Kennif is so recognized as an explorer that you cannot be surprised by where he may arrive next.

Helios - Unomia (flac  264mb)

01 Velius 5:39
02 Cullin Hill 1:19
03 Nine Black Alps 5:46
04 Homero Hymnus 4:55
05 West Orange 4:44
06 Two Mark 4:42
07 Samsara 6:26
08 Light House 2:41
09 Suns That Circling Go 2:57
10 Getting Through 0:41
11 Clementine 5:12
12 Buldir 1:25
13 Luek/Nyckel (Loess Remix) 10:32


Helios - Unomia (ogg 118mb)

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Keith Kenniff's second effort as Helios may take a few fans of his other alias, Goldmund, by surprise. Even those who have heard his first Helios full-length (Unomia) will be getting something slightly different, since Eingya moves deeper into post-rock territory. Eingya is a striking mix of field-recordings, computer synths, acoustic guitar, and his own piano playing arranged to masterful effect, this album is about moods -- digitally constructed moods, yes, but these constructions are powered by typical moody post-rock fuel: delicate piano, soft-spoken guitar, and laid-back drums. That's what the opener, "Bless This Morning Year," is all about and it sets the tone right from the start. "Dragonfly Across an Ancient Sky" is another very strong track in that vein. "Coast Off" offers something slightly different, with choppy computer vocals and an African choir sample running seductively in the background. More ambient, "First Dream Called Ocean" evokes Arve Henriksen's foggy universe. Some field recordings are carefully used throughout the album, and the track list has obviously been sequenced in order to lull listeners into a comfort zone and leave them there. On first listen, Eingya evokes a lot of post-rock bands (and not the worst of them), even though it actually sits somewhere between that genre and a melodic form of experimental ambient. In any case, the music lacks some character to truly leave a mark, but it provides a wonderful listening experience nevertheless.

Helios - Eingya (flac  247mb)

01 Bless This Morning Year 6:01
02 Halving The Compass 5:27
03 Dragonfly Across An Ancient Sky 5:41
04 Vargtimme 3:58
05 For Years And Years 5:33
06 Coast Off 4:53
07 Paper Tiger 4:33
08 First Dream Called Ocean 3:51
09 The Toy Garden 4:43
10 Sons Of Light And Darkness 4:32
11 Emancipation 2:35
 
Helios - Eingya (ogg 111mb )

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What Helios' previous release on Type lacked in character has been fixed by Ayres, no doubt about it. Eingya featured pleasant and clever quasi post-rock, which this album now turns into delightful electro-folk. It turns out that the previous album was missing only one ingredient: vocals! For the first time here, Keith Kenniff (the man behind the Helios moniker) sings, with a very nice, quiet, and frail voice. The opening track, "A Rising Wind," with its multi-tracked looped vocals and aerial ambience, immediately brings to mind Patrick Watson's sound world (minus the electric guitar) crossed with Brian Eno's. This highly melodic, slow-paced song could also be compared to Low, Barzin, or Uphill Racer. The remainder of the album is somewhat less striking yet quite convincing nonetheless, from the delicate guitar arrangements in "Woods and Gives Away" (where the sleigh bells and treated vocals evoke an unlikely hybrid between the Iditarod and Tujiko Noriko, if you can envision that) to the lulling melody of the waltz-like "The Obeisant Vine." This mini album (only a half hour) concludes with a cover of "In Heaven," a song from David Lynch's cult film Eraserhead. Rounding out such a short album with someone else's song could be construed as a sign of weakness, but it actually fits the record's overall atmosphere so well that Kenniff could have you think it's one of his own pieces. Eingya felt like a beautiful country house decorated with subtle taste. With Ayres, that house is now inhabited.

Helios - Ayres (flac 147mb)

01 A Rising Wind 5:05
02 Woods And Gives Away 5:44
03 Signed I Wish You Well 4:58
04 Soft Collared Neck 3:24
05 The Obeisant Vine 4:27
06 In Heaven 4:02

Helios - Ayres (ogg 146mb)

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Helios - Unreleased Vol. 1 (flac 190mb)

01 Convivium 4:18
02 Cross The Ocean 5:23
03 The Evening Walk 3:55
04 Bounce Dive 5:47
05 Every Hair On Your Head 4:00
06 South Tree 4:05
07 Friedel 5:48
08 Distance 4:30
09 Carry With Us 4:05
10 The Jaguar Sun 4:28

Helios - Unreleased Vol. 1 (ogg 89mb)

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