KARA KAIRE
RAVENNA, 2025

on grief, hauntology and improvised sound art

Mourning the dead is a luxury.

There’s no chamber for those lying under the rubble today.

No-names carved. meaning-stripped numbers.

Music,

be the language, the only one that still feels real in a world.

where bombs are normalised. words terrorised.

Music, be the space

To meet, to greet one last

time before. parting.

Let us linger till you

melt into our forest walls.

No matter what, we’ll stick to your soil.

Kaire. Kara.

I didn’t mean to use language, but somehow, syllables came to visit.
Kaire, to rejoice.
In the language of my ancestors, both a hello and a goodbye. a welcome and a farewell.
Kara, the head, the “seat of the soul”, they say, the loved one.

It may be my ancestors
whispering.

Unstructured.strings. slowed and inconsistent. about to stop
anytime.
a voice that breathes and breaks.
As I sing, I see a living saying goodbye to the dead.
Or the dead saying goodbye to the living.
Or a musician comforting both, cause this is what music
does. It stitches back the space that separates us.

I experiment with recording the reverberation of the improv in the empty room.
As I listen back, I hear the sound of a ferry, a farewell.
And I know it is not, and I know it is me attaching meanings to sounds and syllables, but if I
am to be in this meaningless machine, let it be on my terms, let it be through music.

Malagola, School of Vocal Arts and International Centre for Voice Studies - Sound Design within Performing Arts 2025
Mentors:Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), Enrico Pitozzi, Ermanna Montanari, Marco Olivieri, Hubert Westkemper, Luigi Agostini