CONTACT 

A speculative glance at “Primzahlen aus dem Bardo” by Tom Liwa and his Leuchtturmband

He is walking barefoot through the world. I don’t know if he considers it his world, let alone his home. I think he is not quite sure yet. He has been asking the question for years. Trying to make contact. Through music.

His skin is earth greeted by sun. At night he listens to the moon and the stars. His music behaves like a philologist, a lover of the word … and a lover of the voice. Our everyday means of contact. When his gaze turns away from the earth to look at the skies, the music follows the upward movement instinctively, without losing its earthly rhythm; sometimes he chants like in a mantra. The word used is “transcendence”, the popular word I guess, the easy word, but he prefers another word I think – a simpler  one, the opening verse of the album lays bare what drives it – “core”, going to the core, of his being, of being. He wants to stay as close as possible to the story of being. He believes there is one. A prism of stories all reflected in the light emanating from the skies. Many in one. 

Lightfooted – remember, no shoes. The “heart”. Now his music wanted to sound like a voice too, wanted to incarnate into a being of the breath. He chose the saxophone to make a closer contact.

“Contact” is the title of a hard science fiction novel by the American planetary scientist and astronomer Carl Sagan. It was adapted into a movie too which I loved because of all the questions it left unanswered. While nevertheless being so meaningful. Ellie (played by Jodie Foster) is a passionate scientist who is a member of a team searching for extraterrestrial intelligence. An essential part of her job is listening to the skies, to radio emissions coming from space. One day trying to make sense of a signal which she thinks is coming from the star Vega, she discovers that the “message” is written in a sequence consisting of prime numbers. An astonishing find which leads to a whole journey of adventure for the mind, trying to make sense of the material world it came from. Prime numbers  – so it seems – are part of a universal language used by intelligent beings to communicate with others. Like music … perhaps. Is music a signal? Could it be? Is it some mysterious form of guidance? Could music be a way of making contact with what is really essential? Isn’t music the great connector that gets us together like an inviting table offering cookies or cake and a cup of tea? Just like Ellie, Tom Liwa listens to what is out there, to the people, to the world of living, breathing beings, trying to get a little closer. Listening makes everything feel more real.

What has often struck me in the music of Tom Liwa – and the sensitive musicians he surrounds himself with – is its trusting rhythm, so reassuring and comforting. He has shaped music into a trustworthy companion. I think he feels that he can trust in the sounds music is proposing and that he can have faith in the signals it sends. In any case that seems to be the way he relates to music. Never more so perhaps than on this album “Primzahlen aus dem Bardo”. He trusts his stories to the music in good faith. Hoping it will lay bare the true meaning of these chronicles and surround them with an equal share of fantasy and wisdom. His warm, receptive melodies sound like a form of faith in what is out there (the skies and beyond) and what is in here (he holds his hand on his heart) and the belief that both will connect eventually and make contact. And music offers the space where little stories can come together and thrive in the wider realm of being which the music so generously provides. This is the sort of music Tom Liwa specialises in. A genre in its own. Music has always been this art form which somehow succeeds in escaping from its material base and evaporates into the air casting its spell in an inexplicable way. Music is always in this state of betweenness, not sure if it belongs to the material or the spiritual world. Between being and not being there. Tom Liwa has always known how to take advantage of this character trait of music. I suppose their nature – his and the nature of music – is quite similar, they bond easily. Theirs is a natural entente. Tom Liwa proposes a meditative suspension through music and verse. And somehow I learned to trust in his signals.

“Primzahlen aus dem Bardo” has made an impression on me much the same as one of his other masterpieces called “Umsonst Und Draussen”. The highlight of the latter for me was the outdoors song “Hochmoor”, an exceptional beauty of which I still haven’t find the equal in the Anglo-Saxon “popular” music world. On “Primzahlen aus dem Bardo”, the “indoors” song “Binnen Meisje” stands out for me. I like the intimacy the title suggests, the homeliness of a world which certain people can evoke just by being there. Because they are such an intrinsic part of a place and make it come to life in a very intense way. I noticed all the pictures of tables and table settings on the album cover and the pages of the booklet that accompanies  the cd. And the many references throughout the lyrics to tables and food. Tom Liwa loves gathering everyone together around the kitchen table – so I’ve noticed. And all the characters he creates or refers to have this ability to make their part of the world feel alive with fantasy and freedom, even if it doesn’t always lead to a happy outcome. They have the music to thank for this expansive freedom with its endless possibilities and its potential to go on for ever and ever. Tom Liwa has this strange ability to suggest melodies which you don’t mind going on for ever; like a state of grace they seem to be in perfect accordance with the way we feel and like to experience life. I could listen to “Binnen Meisje” for hours, or to “Malmö”. It’s just his gentle way of telling a story of some kind. On “Primzahlen aus dem Bardo” Tom Liwa has rekindled the gentle melodious genius of his best days! It offers us endless moments of introspection as well as plenty of intimations to look around, listen, dream or fantasise about the world, to get better acquainted with the world and to reconcile with it. The music is as reassuring as the perfect, numeric, musical constructions of Johann Sebastian Bach where you get the feeling that everything will be alright in the end. Sometimes you can count on numbers … There is a flawless congruity, where things fit together in a way that makes sense. The presence of the lovely binnenmeisje (as a native Flemish speaker I take the prerogative to write it in one word which would be the “normal” spelling) transports me back to the world of Johannes Vermeer. I was there too in “Eine Andere Zeit” where Tom himself was portrayed as a model of the painter in question. Binnenmeisje becomes the milkmaid or the cook portrayed by Vermeer. A world where she is preparing pancakes maybe and just popped into the supermarket for some missing ingredients for the recipe. This song could be Tom’s way of contact with the painted girl. The vibraphone adds the softest golden sparkles of light coming from the windows; they sound perfectly round. The saxophone glistens in a misty morning light. All the instruments are watching. The song stands still in its reflective rhythm, it captures her unmoving stillness and he sticks with her for the longest time, never in a hurry. Tom Liwa is a master in bringing to the fore the intensity of moments through descriptions that often go hand in hand with thoughts and ruminations or careful considerations; minute, observant scenes that are even more detailed by a surplace of the music which covers it with the whole of its unwavering attention. The band doesn’t want or need to move on, it stays in the moment for as long as it can, it sticks to the story. The results are moods laden with details like a master’s painting. The concentrated slowness lends the song(s) a tremendous power of expressiveness. The music of Tom Liwa is never heroic, it never shows off or gloats in its endeavours. It always starts from the position of the underdog, yet it always wins and comes out first in matters of meaningfulness and emotion. In portraits and still lives, or a sequence of video stills, the music empathises with the smallness and helplessness, the fate of people and other breathing beings, while professing a tolerant open-mindedness and acceptance. Tom Liwa doesn’t fight battles in the way Bob Dylan did. He prefers to go with the flow of music. Like the days of the world his music is an endless reprise. 

In a beautiful contrast of two worlds in “Jack & Neil”, the music suddenly turns its back on a world that doesn’t agree with its ideals of truthfulness or way of living, in one of my favourite moments of the album. “Du bist Mogli und ich Balu”. How can music speak its mind so eloquently I wonder when I hear Tom say: “ Schau da nicht hin – Lass uns gehn – Zurück in die verrückten Wälder”. This could have been a recurring motif on “Primzahlen aus dem Bardo” … such tender beauty in just a few seconds… a point of reference to return to as often as needed, like “Kuya” was on this other landmark of music. The album is chockfull of these little wonders.

Or it could all be a dance. Binnenmeisje dancing with Debussy or Mogli, or with Edith, Tolkien’s wife and Karla, Lucie, Marion and Lars. I see all the characters coming together for a dance on the wonderful Heimat song “The Old Stockholm”. Luise, the saxophone, is the skilled leader of the dance. She dances with Tom’s voice. When they dance it’s hard to distinguish the movement of their feet from the movements of the music – should Luise leave, I think I’d miss her. I suppose Tom Liwa always made music for the feet, his heart connected to the land beneath them. The land carries him and his songs, leads the music on an endless path of exploration, step by step. And along the way there’s laughter too, of children, and playfulness, fun and humour. Stories that don’t take themselves too seriously: “Edith sagt, ihr ist wichtig zu bemerken, dass obwohl es jets so klingt , als seien wir drei Freundinnen gewesen, sie, Olga und ich, wir uns in Wirklichkeit ja nie begegnet sind …” Is it possible – I ask myself – to fall in love with music? What numbers cannot give us on their own, music can, perhaps the greatest thing we crave … and that is meaning.

Although the cluster of names of characters and references to previous albums or to other musicians is dense throughout the album, the song “Stella Oscura”  is concise, but like a spider’s web it leads to yet more sources of inspiration or influences that can be retraced on “Primzahlen aus dem Bardo”, almost ad infinitum – I got back as far as Shakespeare, via T.S. Elliot and others. It is a love song which seems to refer to all previous ones where the light of love was trapped and darkened. Leaving behind only a black star. Shoelaces undone, summer was love, everything ended, a black star holding the beauty of all the love that was. Tom is back with Ellie, watching and listening to the stars and their encoded messages. He will continue to try and translate them into music. You have to listen to believe it! He kicks off his shoes. So he gets a closer contact.

“Da wo jedes Herz so schlägt wie es will, solide wie der Kern eines Berges.” 

“Toodeloo”, I hope it just means “see you later… we will be back soon”…

Joke Roelandt, August 2024