Phœnix Natalia Kiës

• 1Crystalline03:10
• 2Moja Własna Cisza03:57
• 3I Am Gone03:35
• 4Fall Asleep04:04
• 5Piksel I Pigment03:45
• 6Traces04:06
• 7Edda04:15
• 8Świetlik03:17
• 9Kropelka03:43
• 10Snowtrain03:07
• 11Mówić Przez Sen03:41
• Total Runtime40:40

Info for Phœnix

In many ways, Phoenix defies description. How to put something brilliant into words! Just reading the lyrics (or the translations from English and Polish) reveals a poetic soul brought to life. And if jazz is understood as a musical language, Phoenix offers new nuances to traditional notions of how that language should be spoken. In fact, everything in this album reflects Natalia Kië's personal life path.... not straightforward, but intricate, labyrinthine... with detours and stops in a wide variety of musical lands. Her unique flair for experimental jazz-pop songwriting is combined with the stylistic means of "musique concrète" and the musical exploration of her roots - a wandering along the paths, traces and consequences of origin. Thus her Polish side shines in a new brilliance, because the partly "foreign" lyrics speak a truly universal language in her compositions and reveal an unmistakable spectacle of sound, a sound-induced being somewhere else. Featuring percussionist and Grammy Award winner Keita Ogawa (New York), Moto Fukushima (New York) on bass, and Manuel Schlindwein (Cologne) as producer and audio engineer, Phoenix 11 compositions both distinctive and timeless culminate in a profound and breathtaking album full of musical and emotional twists and turns.

With Phoenix, Natalia Kiës has recognized herself. She is there. It's straight ahead. Very slow is the only way to go in this world. Who would have thought it?! In Snowtrain she travels from behind her into the future of experimental pop jazz. At the same time, the dream paths in Mówić przez sen are a useful orientation aid for navigating through the earthly tangle. At least until I Am Gone takes your breath away and incidentally reminds you that not all roads lead to Rome. Together with Kropelka, she strolls through the life of a dancing raindrop. Ever since she can remember, Edda's struggle with herself has been seeping out of every pore. But how much struggle is enough when you still want to look tenderly into each other's eyes? The great love rush between Piksel i Pigment remains absent, but the music delicately caresses our ears. In search of her own silence, Kiës finds a soul mate in Świetlik and a wacky sound spectacle in Moja własna cisza - amazing, this sound-induced elsewhere. With Traces she gets caught in the World-Wide-Web and calls out to it: Who is actually the parasite in our relationship here? She sings about the transparent citizen and says goodbye to all privacy with Crystalline: Have we lost our way again? How beautiful, that all belongs to straight ahead.

Natalia Kiës, piano, vocals
Keita Ogawa, percussion
Moto Fukushima, bass (tracks 1, 5, 6, 7)

Natalia Kiës
born in Nikolai and raised in North Rhine-Westphalia, studied classical piano at the Folkwang University of the Arts Essen and subsequently jazz/pop singing at the ArtEZ University of the ArtsArnhem. She also completed a second degree in psychology at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf on the influence of music and stress on cognitive performance. In New York she took master classes with Gretchen Parlato, Kurt Elling, Shai Maestro and Taylor Eigsti. She lives and works in Cologne and New York.

Music expresses what cannot be said and what is impossible to be silent about. (Victor Hugo)

Seen in this light, Natalia Kiës has always been communicative, her primary language music: while her peers mangle melodica, recorder and glockenspiel for the purpose of making sound, the five-year-old sits at home at the piano of her own free will and practices classical music with childlike enthusiasm. This idyll is interrupted when the family moves from Upper Silesia to Germany after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Natalia has to leave her beloved piano behind - a drama for the then eight-year-old. Her passion for music lies dormant at first, too many impressions and challenges in the new country have to be overcome. But the urge to dedicate her life to music grows...

Indeed, everything in Natalia's music reflects her personal life path... not straightforward, but intricate, labyrinthine... with detours and stops in a wide variety of musical countries stranded in her own musical world, full of delightful contrasts and plenty of room for development. Influenced by her piano playing, her voice, diverse impressions of experimental jazz pop and stylistic devices of "musique concrète", her music speaks a truly universal language, revealing a sound-induced being somewhere else.

This album contains no booklet.