HAWAII OSLO
The Year of Aesthetics №48 2022–11–02
My favorite Polish composer isn’t Chopin. ~A discussion with JR.
I am captivated by Hania Rani’s music. Hawaii Oslo come from her first album Esja, it is based on a play of the same name. It starts with a long line of 16th notes on middle D played a various levels of accent. Rani hammers a central key with three fingers in powerful strokes while muting the string with her left hand. Then she starts spinning left hand notes around this central backbone of sound. This song has a central pulse of the central key hammering, but she creates a space of sound by playing around this backbone of sound. She then moves into a lovely two handed composition. She weaves in sound in cycles and uses variant to change the cycle. The closest composer that I can compare her style to is Philip Glass, yet she moves in and out of sound cycles in unlike glass. While Glass has the feeling of the temporal, I think in volumes moving with time in Rani’s sound. She also has many piano clicking sounds that bring out sounds of the loom which make the music seem to have been woven and crafted. Rani never rushes her music or performance giving the piece its own time like another dimension of space. This lession of the necessity of not rushing music has been a great aid to my own practicing.
Hania Rani is known for her wide range of variation in live and recorded version. The original composition for Hawaii Oslo was for this upright acoustic piano. Rani has the piano open heavily miked and able to manipulate the string and hammers with her hands. The open piano also allows her to pick up sounds of the mechanism of the piano a sound usually hidden she gets her loom sound that adds dimension and physicality to the sound. This version has the rawest sound and is aligns with tone of the piano. It is a full acoustic an but heavily microphone enhanced sound. It has a mechanical industrial loom like presence, yet Rani uses that mechanical clicking sounds to express human rhythms over. She is trying to capture all this piano is capable of, this is the piano of her home the piano she plays everyday and one where she has full control and abandon with sound. I am amazed what she can do with a string of middle d. It is amazing what she does with dynamics and accent before she brings in melody.
This version on a Steinway concert grand has warmer tones, less of the weaving loom sound and more sound of the three finger hammering of the D. It is warmer and the notes are more rounded on this piano, she plays it softer and with more control on this version. Yet it is more percussive. The use of this specific piano is wonderful. The melody line is more song like, she plays it like a jazz standard rather than the more raw original. You hear the wave like cycle of the song. The use of the hammer tones over mechanism clicks is a great variant, and the masterful use of the voice and roundness of this Steinway gives it a warmer jazz essence.
The final version is heavily synthetized sound there are cables and equipment everywhere, the piano is equipped with multiple mics and has acoustic pick ups on the back sound board, the loom weaving sound now echoes deeper and different sounds have different channel amplification. She is using enhancement to get a more wide range of tones. Her use of the produced sound is a new direction in composition. Her ability at the keyboard is extended not hidden, but sounds are pulled out in real time and extenuated. This is not the raw sound but a controlled extension, her acoustic sound is still there but she is fully in control.
There are other songs after Hawaii Oslo in this session. Her use of the electronic Prophet ’08 synth and Roland Piano are magical also. Her vocals are also very heavily produced with eco and auto tune.
Lastly, I love the abruptness of the ending of Hawaii Oslo . Maybe it is the best way to end this essay.
