Nils Kercher
West African Kora-harp played by Nils Kercher meets West African lute / ngoni, played by Ngoni master Barou Kouyaté (Mali) and Western string quartet. English lyrics
For his 2nd world music album Nils Kercher undertook further journeys, gathered a host of new faces and talents around him and created a work that is simultaneously full of subtle introspection and dramatic tension. He calls the result SUKU – Your Life Is Your Poem. “I’m not a poet myself, but I feel drawn to the poetic, so I write my poems in the form of music,” he explains. And you can hear what he means: the nine songs really do feel like a cycle of verses that can leave you enchanted long after the music has faded away. His achievement is to successfully merge the lyrical, refined aspect of his compositions with his passion for rhythm and energy. The way these two opposites always manage to regain their balance is what makes listening to SUKU such an amazing experience.
We hear the highly versatile Nils Kercher amidst his band as a proficient kora and balafon player, as an imaginative master of percussion, and as a singer with a broad-ranging repertoire of timbres. This journey of sound still draws its nourishment from its West African roots while constantly seeking out new paths of its own.
“Often the music grows gradually from a very gentle, mysterious mood and then evolves into a more powerful, vibrant sound”, says Kercher. ”This arc of suspense is what allows me to combine the African elements with an atmosphere of the kind you might find in the music of Arvo Pärt.”
This bridge between different worlds is also present in the track ”THE NIGHT” where raw and dynamic percussive rhythms, ethereal vocals, and minimalist string-playing form a series of fantastic contrasts. An almost sacred, introspective sound space emerges from the quietly oscillating pulse.
For all the inspiration Nils Kercher draws from Africa, he is wary of simply producing a European imitation of African music. His compositions are always first and foremost a mirror of his own path in life, of his outer and inner journeys, in line with the motto, “Your Life Is Your Poem”. Listen to these unusual and profound poems – for that is what they are – and you’ll find yourself becoming utterly absorbed, or surprisingly, simply wanting to get up and dance. Space and stillness, pulse and passion – for Nils Kercher these contrasting qualities are natural neighbours, and both reside at the heart of his music.