#73 A Hawk and a Hacksaw

Paris often made us despair. Gray, cold, flawless, she lets the music wash over her, with at best, indifference, and at worst, contempt. As if wondering, what the hell are they doing here, on my path? Then, despite the cold outside, the gray sky, this lazy cottony Sunday suddenly proved itself to be a nice surprise. Paris was alive with kids.

Jeremy Barnes and Heather Frost, an accordion and a violin, were the ones leading the camera: slowly, slowly, take your time, let the autumn colours leave their mark on you, give some time to the scene to set up, to the kids to meet and stop before us. Slowly, slowly.

For me, this first video really gets started at 4:50, when Jeremy Barnes kneeled down in front of the kids and, after letting a few notes echo, playing one or two fugues to gather his momentum, he eagerly started a melody which mingled perfectly with his surroundings. Gosh, this is Paris, both fantasized and real, the two facets banging together. In thirty seconds, Barnes, Frost and all the kids around them knocked out the so-called typical Amélies of a certain insufferable cinema. Look, this is real, this is a public square, in Paris, on a Sunday afternoon. Look, there are kids looking, and they know how to listen to music, unlike us. For eight seconds, from 5:51 to 5:59, there’s nothing to choose between these kids and those from the late century. What faces, what street urchins.

A Hawk and A Hawksaw are paradoxically disturbing : just like Zach Condon, they have been smitten by Balkan music, its exuberance, and went off looking for it. But if Zach throws himself into it on trust, a bit like one jumps from a bridge, our duet goes for it with a more musical and well-considered approach. Also, their ability to draw a certain form of abandon and freedom from this music, in order to create a flood of notes surging onto us, comes from them hardly ever smiling. No, they don’t take their music too seriously; they are simply unobtrusive to let their music get the leading role.

This specifically, is the paradox in these videos: unlike some others take away shows, here, you’ll find joy in the sound and also in the eyes of people we passed by. Not particularly on Heather and Jeremy faces. That is why we hardly ever invite people to witness the shows, because our aim is that music would attract people who did not expect it. This is true here, more than ever. We should start the Square Sessions, every Sunday, with kids.

Thanks to Sskizo for the translation.