Don’t call it a comeback?
Latin in its purest form is universally considered a dead language, but Keith Kenniff — a.k.a. Helios — has been indirectly doing his part to compel a revival that, with any luck, will soon have non-native speakers (which is everyone) saying “eugepae!”
“Helios” itself is obviously a derivation of the Latin word, “Helius,” which was used to refer to the sun god in Greek mythology; and the Helios album Caesura took its title from the identical Latin word used to highlight verse breaks in poetry. Clearly, the Portland-based musician who specializes in tracks conducive to meditation has an ongoing fascination with these sorts of words. (Maybe single words of ancient etymology are an appropriate lead-in to quasi-ambient magnificence? Or maybe Maximus was a kick-ass character?)
Regardless, Veriditas is Helios’s latest Latin-titled album (and his first) for Ghostly International. And as an allusion to the denotation of “viriditas” (greenness, fecundity, vitality), the music therein is set to demonstrate a degree of new growth for the whole Helios project: percussion apparently wasn’t used on any of the tracks, and the acoustic guitar was likewise relegated to the studio corner for every track save “Upward Beside the Gale.” The result is seemingly something much less active in terms of instrumentation. “I wanted to explore emotionality within something more static,” Kenniff says.
The track “Seeming” below seems to fit the bill indeed. Check it out for yourself down below, pre-order Veriditas now, and start boning up on your Latin before the album’s August 31 release date.
Veriditas tracklisting:
01. Seeming
02. Latest Lost
03. Dreams
04. Eventually
05. Even Today
06. Harmonia
07. North Wind
08. Toward You
09. Upward Beside the Gale
10. Row the Tide
11. Silverlight
12. Mulier
