Description
saltations
Saltations is a vibrant album by Jon Klaemint Hofgaard, featuring an incredible collective of musicians, including Ben Madeley, Toby Couling, and Max Goff. The music blends complexity with directness, capturing the layered messiness of life through intricate, emotive pop. It’s a sonic dance between light and time, inviting listeners to embrace both the joy and chaos of existence in a beautifully unique way.
I Saltations
Here is an album which was made by a number of wonderful musicians (the core band of Ben Madeley, Toby Couling, Max Goff; and an expanded cast too expanded to list here, full credits below) – and which is substantially authored by my friend Jon Klaemint Hofgaard. He named it with a word I had never heard: ‘Saltations’, we learn, may refer to a sudden large-scale mutation in biology, or a sweeping, leaping dance step. Ah, a fine word then.
Obviously here is music to which we may dance, in our jerky and broken ways at home; or shyly, with an outward beautiful awkward reservedness while we’re flying excitedly and just for this moment so free inside, with friends and would-be lovers or actual lovers in whose presence we may still be shy. It’s too dark to see anything much in the photos afterwards, we needn’t fear looking silly after all.
II On Deviated Directness
Pop songs that pull us in different directions at once maybe are good pop songs because life pulls us in different directions at once. Emotions as we feel them are layered, un-simple. And life as the accrual of these ambiguous experiences is, we all know, a big mess: horriblebeautifulmortifyingedifyingrottensublimehappysadhappysadsadsad, oh and it’s long and it’s short god knows, the words are useless even squashed together. But music can do better with this.
A thing to admire here. As musicians we may say ‘I want to write direct, immediate songs’ and recoil, mortified, should we ever get close to achieving same. What we might hope to achieve is this kind of directness that doesn’t preclude emotional complexity, or require us to work only with the most familiar materials. Let us approach things directly, we ask, but from an angle. My feelings for you are real…
III On Light and Time
Trees loom large over ‘Saltations’, gobbling light and time, yes breathable air in return, comfort and shelter from storms of a senseless world too. A place to have a sandwich, gentle rustling of leaves, green breezy joy. The bogman isn’t staked down like Thin Amren, he walks the tops of the trees, light as light, light as time. Saxophones and sunshine, a baby born at a strange time, London and islands of the far North. Mirror, Million, Milkman, Mel, light as light, light as time.
(About the author: JH plays drums in Rutger Hauser and runs micro-label The Lumen Lake.)
Tracklist
- helicopter
- million days
- assembly setter
- only the finest
- sound & fury
- the benefactor
- popheniaa
- after hand
- bogman
- milkman
- forever recipe
- mel
Released on the following formats:
Digitally on all major platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, etc.).
You can check it out by using this link: https://bfan.link/saltations
saltations
- Helicopter
…a sense of fur
and I’m already out
running to my favourite spot
behind Darren’s museum
there’s a green patch
a nice place to sit down
…and there you are
how
deep
can you take
a hunting dog
how
high it must feel like
to be ten
and never die of old age
a thousand years linked
will I remain with you
the thought soars like
a helicopter
nothing below is above me
bye bye Zoysia
let’s find a new lawn
how
deep
can you take
the heart of a dog
how
high it must feel like
to be ten (feet)
and never die of old age
- Million Days
million days
- Assembly Setter
A bang occurs
and a road appears
Squire shocked
by the vision
Sally is holding
her sign
this time
stops, she is stuck
in a kettle
Can you see that
giant puppet coming here
voices building
folks assembling
Barbara is
completely agog
summer has stopped
The sign reads “clear all male fog”
A change
serial turning
is coming your way
right here
push and settle for
EPA
A labour of pain
with radical thought
a sisterhood
against order
Herstories rebuilt
for a past
of lost class
unleash imaginative disruptions
on all streets
Let us all gather forces
for a £6 raise
four hundred women
dealing four hundred blows
Their footsteps sustained
like anecdotal gain
channel this road
that still remains
a change
serial turning
is coming your way
right here
push and settle for
equal pay
- Only the Finest
Only the finest
presents for you
decided today
Let us skip the walk home
I know a good place
that nobody has seen(a)
but Jerry, David, Chris and Tina
There is a city in my mind
where every appointment has been moved to last week
we will see the shoreline
look where my hand was
this is where time is on our side
With our feet in the air
We are having fun with no money
on a road to nowhere
and the future is certain
we are shakedown dreams walking in broad daylight
we are Talking Heads walking in
new daylight
- Sound & Fury
sweet walk
a summer shade
half asleep
carried all day
shake off
icing dust
another year
is suddenly here
—
stand up
there is no duck
withdrawn from our system
we wasted our luck
eyes glow…
suns arise
the fields are flushed
romantic scenes
advertised in rose
—-
a slip of paper
burning leaves
before our storm
do you remember snow?
sound & fury
is all I feel
how thick a tree did fell?
everyone knows Shell is hell
I tell there is promise of air
I think
I stoop
oh dear…
wake up
a tunnelled room
where did the sky go?
turn on display
eyes glow…
suns arise
the fields are flushed
romantic scenes
advertised in rose
A slip of paper
burning leaves
before our storm
try to remember snow
sound & fury
is that all I feel
how thick a tree did fell
everyone knows Shell is hell
I tell there is promise of air
a chill
I stoop
oh dear…
6. The Benefactor
I want to hear you
soft and loud
be your many lovers
the kind of life
you have led for me
is like a
magic mountain
against these
interprets
philologic
imagestrates
funky fuck!
…
all style
& no substance
My feelings for you are real
but in a way
they are about
moi et moi et moi
Many aperçus and one-lines
make you the greatest
of all time
Apply dreams
to your one and only life
you will see
that metaphors lie
and that many orgasms
give you more time
Gorgeous mistress
it is evident
my Jewish diva
no romance
just flights
of fanciful glance
My feelings for you are real
but in a way
they are about
moi et moi et moi
Many aperçus and one-lines
I benefit from you all time
Apply dreams
to your one and only life
you will see that metaphors lie
and dance and music
give you more time
7. Popheniaa
Arrive in forty minutes
and twenty seconds
five dampened windows
five fine signs
Counting clouds and fibres
on emu headrests
all brothers are electric
my sister forgets this night
Our car is a searcher
made of cartography
my mother is always singing
“Let the wind take the steering wheel”
Popheniaa plays all night
my father sleeps…
Surrounding sites weave in
shakes and we are leaving;
passing all cities
that lack a clear way out
The tires flat and chugging
and we are all hugging
there is a felt love;
for stillness
for this place
Our home is a searcher
made of homo fabers
dreams cut in
the wheels let go
we will reach higher
to
all
soaring
worlds
Popheniaa plays all right
our breath consumes all light-eyes
we are awake all night
8. After Hand
After
a while
oil will
settle
rest now
hang up
pussy
willows
pillows
giant
brush strokes
lap them
slap them
surface matters
meaning follows more work
write on
write on
write on
WRITE ON
WRITE ON
9. Bogman (intro: 3:00)
its limbs they tremble
eyes terrifyingly dry
heart is autophagic
with wild inimitable logic
a wreck so attractive
like remains of a chewed Roman sole
its passion is deathless
looks around you, relentless
…
unknown speech yet worldly
breathes through porous skin
phonetics whispered to a flame
like horrors of a secret toil
a mythogrammic question
that charts a semblance of lost kin
eyelashes flutter like flamed fronds
it contemplates the lonely that burn out
…
rocking on top of a tree
twigs snap under its feet
a howling that can only give fright
“there is no thing that contains such light!”
make sure to wrap and suss it
in heaps of dried cedar leaves
a human turned savage to right
“make sure to contain all the light!”
…
what it will lose in strength
it will gain in senses, love order
forget how forests think
suffocate dreams of sunlight
its taste for pure water is telling
as rain falls it’s always leaving
crawling for more incisions
the moon is handing out commissions
10. Milkman
“…one more drop”
utters to us
towards dogwood drive
First waiters live here
cut their own hair
no hands to glance
abstain from
dreamy afterlives
become business class
to sea – “to me”
you see – “a tree”
Where does he hide it?
- “serve it”
- “drink it”
- “then you let it slide”
Why is it like this?
- “gift it”
- “open”
- “then you let it slide”
How come he is like this?
- “former”
- “creature”
- “then you let it slide…”
like poetry
slip in Louise Glück
till both knees collapse
things that we eat
are servants to a name
too great to shame
simply can’t
be carried
needs a sack – “and a map”
to hold – “to zero”
the milk – “the fugue”
it is like milk – “it is like silk”
Where does he hide it? / “Tell me I am sleeping”
- “serve it”
- “drink it”
- “then you let it slide”
Why is it like this? / “Why is it silent?”
- “gift it”
- “open”
- “then you let it slide”
How come he is like this? / “Lie still and watch it”
- “former”
- “creature”
- “then you let it slide…”
11. Forever Recipe
Lately aged well
some say like chine
still as a stone
earth feels alone
dig holes for time
by walls of China
when I play chess
rain is endless
12. MEL
A certain spell
has been cast on me
like golden sand
Swayze eyes
and dressed to kill
you are blood and light
All flowers inhale
…
every single time
you blow my mind
I am enjoying this play
our cat walks
on Dartmoor ponts
We are performing
whether in or not
our body talks
All truffles exhale
…
and every single time
you blow my mind
a tilt
a sway
a fountain
so intense
melodies commence
extend the time
a swim
with seamless fins
under tarpaulins
…
A heron’s night
estranged
goodbyes
until next time
