Born in Walsrode, Germany and currently based in Brooklyn, New York, the composer-musician-producer-analog synthesizer specialist Faten Kanaan is releasing her fifth album Afterpoem on February 24. It’s her second for Fire Records, and it extends the broad and artfully unpredictable nature of her work to highly satisfying ends.
Lots of folks who utilize analog synthesizers as their instrumental foundation flourish in one or two stylistic modes, and sometimes that’s exactly what makes their music worthwhile. However, Faten Kanaan’s output is harder to pin down as her influences span from early music and baroque forms to modern minimalism to the drifting textures associated with ambient.
A lack of vocals solidifies Kanaan as a classically minded composer rather than a pop songwriter practicing her craft in the sphere of electronics, and her general avoidance of samplers and embracing of cyclical motifs increases the difficulty of placing her work in the contemporary landscape, although she’s clearly unwilling to indulge in a throwback sensibility.
Kanaan’s work can also be appealingly fragmentary, as is the case with Afterpoem’s two-minute opener “Fin août, début septembre,” which conjures a swirling atmosphere that’s a bit like wandering around a deserted carnival while in the grips of a hallucinogenic drug. Cool. Then “Trenchcoat,” nearly as succinct, takes a sweet left turn down an alley betwixt a cathedral (organs) and a chamber (some harpsichord-like sounds), and that’s even cooler.
Hopefully, this communicates how Kanaan is adept at melody and comfortable with the old forms. Stretching out a bit in “Ard Diar,” Kanaan sits down at the piano, her playing tranquil but not too glisteningly gorgeous in a neo-classical sense, as a hazy electronic surge arrives in the track’s midsection and then dissipates before the finish.
“Ebla” shifts gears into a decidedly steely, almost futuristic environment, though Kanaan doesn’t leave melody behind, and in “Florin Court,” she navigates into a minimalist zone that’s almost like Terry Riley walking around Brooklyn with J. S. Bach on his mind. But as the piece progresses there is a gentle redirect into a shimmering ’80s electronic art-pop zone.
The snippet “Snowing” brings visions of a robotic Mary Lattimore to mind, and “Domari’s Lamp” is similar in thrust to “Ebla” with Kanaan keeping a loose handle on the tuneful. And while Afterpoem is a non-vocal album, “Votive” does feature textures that resemble choral singing, a tactic that harkens back to the artist’s prior album for Fire, A Mythology of Circles from November 2020, which featured VST sampled voices in a choral style.
“La Smorfia” reinforces the soundtrack potential of Kanaan’s work, while “Castling” hints at the prickly sounds one might hear in a ‘70s aspirin commercial and pairs them with some rubbery faux strings. “Falconers” is another melodious snippet and the lengthier “Cascando” initially leans toward the ambient side of the spectrum before getting overtaken by a flood of reverberating, echoing, synthetic chamber tones.
Closing track “Storm Signal” finds Kanaan back at the piano as she explores a blend of moods neo-classical and soundtrack-like. Like much of the record, the piece is concise, with its maker disinterested in unnecessarily prolonging her pieces. Afterpoem is a trim, intriguing album from a composer at the peak of her powers.
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