Walden Festival, Leopold Park, Belgium, July 16

The Walden Festival is only three years old, and takes place at the very scenic Leopold Park in the EU quarter of Brussels. It’s organised by the long established Klarafestival, which takes place every March, concentrating on all ages of classical music, as well as embracing jazz, folk and electronic styles. The Walden two-dayer moves in similar zones, but with a reduced classical content. Indeed, its primary focus is on acts that are compatible with our Songlines outlook. It’s a relaxed, atmospheric experience, avoiding any kind of extreme volume violence. The overall nature could be described as sensitive, calming, meditative or even, sometimes, exquisite. This isn’t dilution, it’s a deliberate strategy. There are an abundance of other weekenders dedicated to a more bullish attack.

Walden uses seven stages, mixing the indoor and outdoor experience. The main Museum (Of Natural Sciences) stage has the biggest capacity, and that’s where the food and drink stalls are also located. Le Trio Joubran headlined on the Sunday eve, playing to fully populated rows of chairs, covered by a large open marquee to ward off the occasional drizzling. This long-running oud-wielding north-Palestinian band of brothers is actually augmented by extra players, handling cello, percussion and drumkit, who created a trialogue, seamlessly contributing solos in sequence, exchanging phrases and emphatic conclusions that sometimes sprung off into a fresh melody. There were a few vocal folk songs included, to increase the audience singalong participation, wafting warmth under the rainfall. The trio have been together for almost two decades, and this is evident in their rapport. Joubran mix sadness and celebration, in turn, ‘The Hanging Moon’ featuring an extended cello solo, the piece picking up with a switch to keyboards, and then a lively swapping of oud solos.

Mari Kalkun (photo by Frank Emmers)

The specially endowed indoor venues included the Solvay Library (polished wood a-go-go) and the Dinosaur Museum, this latter being the location of Mari Kalkun’s set, where she was literally surrounded by looming skeletons. Kalkun sings, and plays the kannel (an Estonian zither), and has lately been increasing the amount of keyboards and electronic landscaping in her songs. Floating around the bones, it sounded like she was using a spatial mix, opening with a very quiet song, making vocal layers with pedals, and thickening the soundscape. This was notably impressive inside this vaulting museum space. Kalkun explores a mythic angle, bowing her strings low, then wafting out among the crowd, like a pagan Herbie Hancock. Her voice is not dissimilar to the Sami lilt, as Kalkun weaves her tales with solitary drum punctuation. In keeping with the calm festival mood, she closed the set with a lullaby.

On the perimeter was the Garden stage, perhaps the most secluded setting of all. The Flemish accordion duo of Airboxes brought chromatic and diatonic together, investigating tonality and space. They also use a subtle electro-foot-pad for percussion on some tunes, but they can still opt for a stately traipse, with detailed pinprick notes. This pair have been playing together for six years, and they included French dances, followed by jigs, and a mazurka.

De Cauter (photo by Syntha Cnudde) 

The same small bandstand stage also hosted a magical set by two members of the de Cauter gypsy jazz dynasty, with Myrddin and Imre playing guitar and cello, both of them singing as well. They made extremely subtle music together, in this hushed mini-glade, gracefully drawing on a few emphatic elaborations. Sometimes Myrddin can have quite a cut to his string-action, but mostly the de Cauters personified the aesthetic beloved by the Walden organisers.