# Kevin Volans



## Earthling

Some 15 years ago I went through a phase of listening to a lot of various African music and one of the discs I picked up during that time was the Kronos Quartet's Pieces of Africa, which included a five movement string quartet ("White Man Sleeps") by South African composer *Kevin Volans*, who was new to me at the time. It was one of the most memorable things on the disc.

Over the years, moving from one place to the next, I eventually lost the disc and had forgotten all about it. Last night for some reason, Kevin Volans came to mind and I downloaded "White Man Sleeps," as well as another Volans quartet (on a Kronos EP), "Hunting: Gathering."

Listening to them at first (especially "White Man Sleeps") it could, at first glance, be easily be mistaken for just another minimalist composer, but in these two early quartets, Volans uses complex African rhythms (and polyrhythms) to a much different and more interesting effect. The music is "tonal" but the resulting harmony has more to do with colour than function. There are some surprising lyrical passages that appear in places as well.

Rather than coming off as European music appropriating African music, it sounds like African music appropriating European music. Its very startling and refreshing music-- a very different sound world.

Here are a couple samplings of "White Man Sleeps":

Movement 1

Movement 4

(the recording quality is far from good in these two videos, especially due to the acoustics-- also, Kronos takes the first movement at a much faster tempo, which I prefer)

I wonder if anyone else here is familiar with Volans' work?


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## Head_case

I have the same CD as you - from the rest of my Kronos Quartet collection. Anyone familiar with their oeuvre will know how admirable some recordings are (for instance, their Gorecki string quartets; the Schnittke string quartets and some of the stranger projects - like the Medieval Polyphony arranged for string quartets, or the Latin-American music for string quartet). 

Volans was one of those Kronos discs which I ended up giving away (I won't say for 'charity', since I didn't consider myself having blessed anyone else with the joy of listening to Volans. 

Reading what you've written, looking back, I think I was rather rash in dispensing with it. It sounds more interesting now that you put it that way. Guess it would help to have the original version to listen to once more after about 10 years, to see if it has grown on me since....


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