It is fair to say that Martin Walker in his creative alter ego of Art Schop finds some interesting and deep themes to base his music around. If you are tired of the usual boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-tries-to-work-out-where-it-all-went-wrong shallowness in pop music, this is the place to come. Having previously taken everything from Michelangelo to Lou Reed, Wittgenstein to Leibniz, from soul-searching to cosmos gazing as his subject matter, here, he turns his attention to Katharina.
Johannes Kepler, German astronomer, mathematician, natural philosopher, and writer of music, was the son of the titular Katharina Kepler – midwife, herbalist, and astrologer, someone who rightly or wrongly informed his work and became a bridge between the world of science and more mystical beliefs. The story of mother and son, as well as the father who abandoned them, could fill a whole album of music, but here, Art Schop distills the essence of the story and the brief outline of their complex relationship into a gentle, folk-pop ballad.
A constant and understated guitar circles and coils around the lyrics, a funereal beat keeps time, and other chiming sonic motifs drift sparingly through as Art Schop lays out his emploring and minimalist narrative, all the more poignant and direct for the spacious and atmospheric nature of the music.
Deep stuff indeed, but also the sort of song that piques the interest of the enquiring mind, and I’m sure that I can’t be the only person to come to the end of the song and at least fire up Wikipedia to find out more about this intriguing mother and her famous son. Can I?
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