Recently, the good Kiran Leonard, who left an indelible mark on these pages with the beautiful “Grapefruit” (2016), moved from Manchester to London and the contact with a city reality, certainly more complex and alienating, allowed him to focus even more on his own interiority, finally drawing from it the conviction that the time had come to publish an album capable of summarizing all his previous releases, so as to create something disciplined and concise, without however translating into a annoying compromise.
The result is this “Real Home”, which is certainly one of his most accessible works, even if, when talking about the English artist, the adjective “accessible” is always to be taken with a pinch of salt. And so, “Pass Between Houses”, the first piece of the revived Kiran (allow me to call him by name), offers a fascinating combination of “mathematical” folk and jazz transcendence, all expressed with a frenetic attitude and a flow of words that prove to suggest the suffocating climate of a large metropolis. However, even when reality accelerates without limits, we can still grasp the contours of this or that image, before relying on our imagination.
Eyes forward, forward step.
The temptation divides to spite itself.
“Oh, where I go, implementation rules.
Vacate the room. Your signs are grieving.”I saw, through a great whirlwind,
unknown stations laid still as time was shaking.
“Oh, will I know agitations bloomed,
raised true? A light without envy—”
“How, when faced with demons and foulness?”
I see it now!In cities robbed of their wreaths,
grasping at outlines of accelerating imagery,
proceed, take action, and protect your reverie.
Pass between houses; reject expectant history.
If, at first glance, it may recall the oblique scores of Jim O'Rourke, “Theatre For Change” then develops a path made of mid-air meditations and various edges, the outcome of which is a triumphant explosion.
There title track instead, he creates a fluid and wandering piano melody, giving us some of the most moving moments of the album.
To home through the fog.
At the of respite.
A walk in the park?
Smell of inside.Damned if I don't aspire
to wild boasts that police
our strange lives;
I cross and wind to you.Smell of inside.
A vault through the night?
The country-pop interlude of “Treat Me A Stranger” marks a sort of caesura in “Real Home”. In fact, starting with “Utopia Of Bog”, the songwriting by Leonard becomes more centered and the progressive-folk guitar of “The Kiss”, with its images of distant loves and the vocal cameo of Magdalena McLean of the Carolinas, establishes itself as the culminating moment of the work.
Far on, far out, the flower is singing,
unheld, far on, far out, the silence is singing,
like stone, far out, the silence is singing,
unheld — far out — like stone — a kiss —
our lives — unheld — far out —
There is space, then, for the repetitive chords and Penguin Café Orchestra tracks of “Void Attentive” and for a “My Love, Let's Take The Stage Tonight” which made me think of the Replacements trying to sound like the Violent Femmes, but with strings. In sealing this successful return, Kiran gives us another immersion in the deepest heart of her emotions: and, thus, “He Had Always Led” resembles a tender, painful letter sent to someone who is no longer here and who we loved so much.
11/19/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM
