Hior Chronik - Taking The Veil (2015)

‘Taking the Veil’ is the debut solo album on Kitchen. Label by Berlin-based musician Hior Chronik. Originally from Athens, the new album is a follow-up to his previous work on the label as the duo Pill-Oh in ‘Vanishing Mirror’. The established foundation are intact on ‘Taking the Veil’: the bitterly romantic strings and gentle electronics whisper melting over plaintive piano scores. Hior Chronik has a penchant of producing subtly immense and cinematic compositions which are remarkably chilling in its beauty.

The latest release follows Hior Chronik’s distinctive compositional path with the pairing of a collaborator on each track. This time the instrumental colors are most intimate, honed to evocative perfection with each collaboration bringing its own nuances to a permeable set of motives. Through the contemplative moments, what give it life is the varied scoring which goes from solo piano to string orchestra, opening up a space that shimmers with stirring melancholy. Featuring classically aligned contemporaries such as Field Rotation (Denovali Records), Sophie Hutchings (Preservation), Luup (Experimedia) and Japanese composers Yasushi Yoshida (noble), Yoshinori Takezawa (Schole Records) among many others. The biggest change in this new album is the addition of vocals by Amber Ortolano and Fabiola Sanchez (Familiar Trees) on four songs. Figured centrally in the soundtrack as recurring lyrical voicing, the Amber Ortolano and Hior Chronik pairing also produced a rearranged version of ‘Twice’ originally written by Swedish electronic band Little Dragon.

‘Taking the Veil’ is presented in a 16-page art book format, also featuring the New York based Amber Ortolano as a photographer. The subject in the visual narrative of ‘Taking the Veil’ is of young women imprisoned by their flow of thoughts and their dark imagination. The delicate beauty and ambiguous gestures of feminine protagonists serve as powerful metaphors of the veil as the title of the album reflects – They reveal and conceal all at once, reviving emotions conjured by a sense of mystery. The album underlines this atmosphere that probe the consciousness imbued with burnished hues of something half-remembered and half-dreamed. ‘Taking the Veil’ is the best company for late hours and memory searching in a world of mist and shadows.

Tracklist:

01. London Bridges (Feat. Amber Ortolano)
02. Nest Of Autumn (Feat. Sophie Hutchings)
03. Twice (Feat. Amber Ortolano)
04. Small Wonders (Feat. Yasushi Yoshida)
05. Cold Winter Morning (Feat. Luup)
06. Simple Is Beautiful (Feat. Field Rotation)
07. Sailing Away (Feat. Amber Ortolano)
08. We Are All Snowflakes (Feat. Yoshinori Takezawa)
09. Oblivion (Feat. Field Rotation)
10. Can You Hear (Feat. Familiar Trees)
11. When The Night Comes (Feat. Daphne Farazi)
12. Between Two Rooms (Feat. Seiji Takahashi)
13. The Sense We Make (Feat. Halo)
14. Quiet Inside Your Chest (Feat. Aaron Martin)
15. The Ghost You Left Behind