John Fahey was 27 years old when he recorded Requia. While parts of it play as a sincere ceremony of remembrance for people who meant something to him, it was nonetheless the work of an ornery young man. That provenance showed, especially on the spectacularly trollish, side-long musique concrete composition, “Requiem For Molly.” Henry Kaiser knows all about Fahey, guitars experimental music, and Requia in particular. He’s recorded a couple albums of his own using that title, and posed for one of them in a visual homage to Fahey’s record. But Kaiser’s also managed to live a longer life than Fahey, very different but no less astounding. He has been able to carry on a career as a boundary-straddling guitarist who gets to play whatever he wants with pretty much whoever he wants and also to work as a research diver with a specialty in under-ice video work.
Several tracks from this projectstarted out as a COVID-era project, when Kaiser included among the regular YouTube videos that he posted from lockdown with shout-outs to recently passed musicians, such as Steffen Basho-Junghans and David Lindley. Over time, the partings tend to proliferate. Kaiser found himself with ten mostly-solo tracks that shared two criteria: they memorialized fellow travelers who adventured with him upon or under the ice, or who made music, films or musical instruments; and they continued Kaiser’s decades-long determination to do more with the guitar than it previously had been able to do. These became Mahalo Nui.
Born in 1951, Kaiser has now lived long enough to know loss in ways that Fahey could not when he recorded Requia in 1967. Across its two sides, Fahey dug deep into sorrow and respect, and also let fly some ill-focused antagonism. You’ll some sorrow on Mahalo Nui, particularly on the sole non-solo performance, a slide guitar trio in honor of David Lindley. But you’ll hear a lot more joy and gratitude; the album’s title translates from Hawaiian as Thank You Very Much. “Hard Time Killin’ Spoonful Requiem For Paul Hostetter” mashes up Derek Bailey and Skip James gestures with more glee than rue; perhaps Kaiser assembled the performances from licks that the late luthier loved? The glistening tones and complex timbres of “Antarctic Requiem For Liz Sutter & Bija Sass,” which is named after two of his fellow Antarctic travelers, evoke a state of drifting wonder and weightless solace.
In 1990, I caught a Kaiser solo concert and came away as impressed with the looming height of his effects rack as I was with his music. He’s never been afraid to indulge the possibilities of technology and technique, and there have certainly been times when they have gotten the better of him. That never happens on Mahalo Nui. The occasions when he foregrounds technical interventions, such as the school of psychedelic blurs on “Mysterious Requiem For Paul Plimley” and the real-time combination of scything slide guitar and MIDI-controlled piano notes on “Some Of The Great Ancestors Inside My Guitar,” pay off real musical dividends. This record makes a strong case for both the technical and emotional aspects of Kaiser’s art. One caveat for those who prefer physical formats; if you go to Kaiser’s Bandcamp page, this title is only offered as a download. However, it is also available as a CD if you’re willing to search a bit.
What makes evolved stands different from requiem stands? Like I know that it’s based on stabbing yourself vs stabbing your stand, but the stand gets upgraded either way, so what’s the functional difference?
Requiems have different abilities. Evolved Stands are more like pokemon evolutions rather than a separate form.
Edit: Some clearer phrasing; normal evolving Stands are more like Pokemon, Requiems are like an entirely different Stand. There's also that situation with Pucci and Whitesnake but that will probably need its own post.
All requiems have a power pertaining to souls, meaning Bites the Dust isn't a Requiem (as awesome as that'd be).
I’ve seen people dying. Not the poetic kind of death; the in a blink type of death, I’ve seen people actually “dying”; Slowly; Gradually. As their souls begin to cave in, giving in, to the tempting idea that death is a fate much better than this. I’ve seen souls waver and get extinguished before bodies gave in, like candles in the wind, not knowing where to cling on to. Hope? Or faith? Be it what…
And at last, you saw yourself as a fruit, you stepped
out of your clothes and brought your naked body
before the mirror, you let yourself inside
down to your gaze; which stayed in front, immense,
and didn't say: I am that; no: this is.
So free of curiosity your gaze
had become, so unpossessive, of such true
poverty, it had not desire even
for you yourself; it wanted nothing: holy.
