Kairos Collective | Mulciber

Review of Mulciber in Blogfoolk Magazine

June 17, 2026

We have in our hands an interesting album entitled Mulciber, created by the Kairos Collective, founded by composer and geologist Michiel van der Meulen. It is a highly ambitious project that explores the forces shaping and regulating our planet through sixteen instrumental pieces. How can this aspect be understood? The title itself already provides a clue. Historically, Mulciber—so named by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)—was a volcano in the North Sea that was active during the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous periods, around 150 million years ago. At that time, the area around the North Sea was seismically active due to the breakup of the supercontinent Laurasia. When faulting occurred in other regions, such as the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean, seismic activity around the North Sea gradually subsided. According to Michiel van der Meulen, who led TNO’s Geological Survey of the Netherlands project, the discovery marks an important step in understanding volcanism in the North Sea. Van der Meulen stated: “The geological deposits of the North Sea are an exciting story to read. This discovery adds information and new variables to the general knowledge we already had about our environment. The chances of Mulciber erupting are virtually zero. In fact, Mulciber is an extinct volcano.”

Returning to the album itself, it was released in December 2025, and one thing must be understood from the outset: it does not reveal itself on a first listen. It demands careful exploration, and its overall sonic landscape is remarkably varied. Instrumental writing is the album’s beating heart, and in this regard van der Meulen leaves almost nothing to chance. The arrangements are constructed with an architectural precision that can be felt in every layer. For example, the opening track, ‘Propontis’, lays the foundations for the entire project: an interweaving of instrumental voices that move with extraordinary fluidity, never overwhelming one another. As the album progresses, tracks such as ‘Fumarola’ and ‘Nepheli’ stand out as particularly memorable, characterized by a steadily growing musical structure, as though they were the magma of a volcano gradually building beneath the surface. Equally significant is the presence of taqsim, a genre typical of Ottoman music that is based on improvisation and follows specific rules of development and elaboration tied to melodic progression. For this reason, taqsim can sometimes be described as “real-time composition.” One of the contemporary exponents of this genre is Michalis Kouloumis, a violinist and composer in the Kairos Collective and the creator of the album Displaced Dreams. Taqsim can be heard most clearly in four tracks: Kürdîli Hicâzkâr, Hicâz, Nevâ, and Hisâr-Bûselik. These are pieces of breadth and depth, in which time seems to expand. The overall result is a work that traverses Balkan folk music—the lively ‘Kalajdžijsko’ being the most immediate example—and the modal traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean, holding everything together not through force but through an internal coherence that gradually reveals itself. To use an image, the album progresses like tectonic plates: through slow yet inexorable movements that ultimately reshape the landscape.

Naturally, listeners seeking immediate melodies or recognizable rhythms may find the album difficult, perhaps even challenging in its more suspended and contemplative sections. Mulciber requires a willingness to engage with sounds that lie outside familiar habits, such as the aforementioned taqsim, Balkan scales, and the open structures of its more experimental compositions. This is not a flaw of the album—it is its very nature. To return to the geological metaphor, it is like an excursion through an extraordinary terrain. The experience is worth the effort, but it is only fair to know beforehand that the journey will take place across rugged ground. For those willing to stop and truly listen, however, Mulciber offers something rare: the feeling that the music is telling a story larger than the people performing it, something inspired by the Earth itself.  https://kairoscollective.bandcamp.com/album/mulciber

Francesco Tommasino

© 2026 Blogfoolk Magazine

Review of Mulciber in New Folk Sounds

Reviews / kanun, modal music, old, Southeastern Mediterranean / By Marius Roeting

Michiel van der Meulen has done it again: with Mulciber—named after a primordial crater in the North Sea—he once more delivers a superb album of contemporary modal music from roughly the south-eastern European Mediterranean region. That means oud, kanun, lyra, but also violin, cello, ney and, naturally, a wide range of percussion instruments. Nineteen musicians support van der Meulen, among them Ross Daly, Kelly Thoma and Efren Lopez, alongside other musicians from Greece, Turkey, Iran and the Middle East. A particularly striking guest is Sylvain Barou (gajda, zurna), who, alongside a career in (Breton) folk music, is increasingly focusing on music from the East.

This supergroup, brought together under the name Kairos Collective, has once again created a premium-class album. Despite the unfamiliar time signatures, rhythms and sequences to Western ears, the accessibility of the compositions wins you over immediately. At one moment upbeat, dynamic and fast-paced; at another refined, hushed, melodic and lyrical. As a geologist, van der Meulen feels deeply connected to the Earth and its origins. That connection involves eruptions, heat, cooling, petrification and erosion — precisely the processes evoked by these sixteen tracks. Many are van der Meulen’s own compositions, some based on or derived from existing makams, supplemented by a number of improvisations from the performing musicians (oud, kanun, violin and cello), as well as an arrangement of a piece by Wouter Swerts.

The music alone is more than worth the effort, but the album’s liner notes—available online—are also extensive, insightful and richly informative, providing background and explanation that offer a deeper understanding of the enchanting world of modal music. They radiate enormous passion, as well as a strong sense of connection with friends and colleagues. Every piece—some being revisions of previously performed compositions—is a delight to the ear. The surprising finale to this captivating journey through a contemporary modal musical paradise is the composition ‘Satyr’, recorded using the carillon of Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, combined with recorded street sounds from the Binnenrotte and a virtual street organ. How all of this connects to modal music is explained in the accompanying notes.

Van der Meulen deserves a statue.

© 2026 New Folk Sounds

Review of Mulciber in De Subjectivisten

NNM is a series in which we review new music by Dutch artists.

Kairos Collective – Mulciber (cd, TouMilou Records)
The versatility of the NNM series is perhaps best highlighted by composer and multi-instrumentalist Michiel van der Meulen, who has devoted himself to contemporary modal music for many years and has become something of an ambassador for the genre in the Netherlands. Modal music is characterized by the use of modes—that is, combinations of a scale and a melodic framework. Particularly rich modal traditions emerged in the Ottoman Empire, while in the West modes survive primarily in the form of the medieval church modes. Because modal music does not rely on the conventional major/minor tonal system, it often has a more atmospheric, tranquil, and less directive character. It typically revolves around melody and improvisation within a modal framework, often without strong functional harmony. But perhaps music is best not approached too technically—it is far too beautiful for that.

Van der Meulen’s introduction to Greek and Balkan music, which is closely related to these traditions, came from his father Albert, who, together with his mentor Wouter Swets, pioneered the then relatively unfamiliar Greek and Balkan repertoire with the ensemble Čalgija. That early exposure sparked his interest, and he later studied on Crete with the British-Irish ethnomusicologist Ross Daly, where he mastered the system of melodic modes found in traditional Turkish music. He has also performed as a violinist with the ensemble Ano Kato and founded the Kairos Collective. The group has since released the impressive world music albums Pîrî Reis (2016), Európe (2019), and Erato (2022).

Now comes a new album, Mulciber, named after the extinct volcano beneath the Dutch sector of the North Sea. The volcano also serves as a metaphor for Van der Meulen’s artistic approach. He explains:

“Making art is throwing back some of what life throws at us. Fortunately, life is kind enough to throw lots of rocks at me. I am grateful for that, because my job is to unravel their stories, piece those together, and try to make some sense of the world.

Most rocks are thrown at people who refuse to see that they have a story to tell. That is most unfortunate, because rocks possess a moral compass that is worth consulting: they tend to fly from the oppressed to the oppressor, showing us who is who. If we fail to recognise this, we risk seeing lives being reduced to rubble in a world that is making less and less sense.

Named after a deeply buried volcano, this album is primarily inspired by the Earth. Some of its pieces portray forces that shape our planet, and how this affects us humans. Others recall some of my fellow geologists and their interests. However, I wouldn’t object if you looked beyond my profession and idiosyncrasies, and preferred to see Mulciber as a metaphor for the state the world finds itself in. We seem to be dancing on a volcano, while pressures and temperatures are rising.”

I could hardly put it better myself. Across sixteen pieces spanning an impressive seventy-two minutes, the collective pours its musical lava over the listener. In ancient Greek mythology, Kairos is the personification of the opportune moment, the right time to act or seize an opportunity, and thus represents inspiration and enthusiasm. That spirit is perfectly suited to this music, which was clearly created with immense passion—or perhaps more aptly, with fire.

Alongside Van der Meulen (compositions, tambura, and virtual barrel-organ sequencing), the ensemble consists of Giorgos Papaioannou (violin), Michalis Kouloumis (violin), Simos Papaspyrou (ney), Manolis Kanakakis (kanun), Yasamin Shahhosseini (oud), Alexandros Papadimitrakis (oud), Nikos Papaioannou (cello), Pavlos Spyropoulos (double bass), Cengiz Arslanpay (sound design), Sergios Voulgaris (kudüm), Jacobus Thiele (bendir, adufe, chime tree, zills), and Eleanna Papanikolopoulou (daoulaki, bendir). A number of guest musicians also appear on lyre, bağlama saz, tarhu, gaida, zurna, laouto, daf, and carillon, including Van der Meulen’s former teacher Ross Daly. As always, the compositions are entirely instrumental, yet they convey compelling stories and profound emotions, striking deep emotional chords. The album is steeped in a gentle melancholy and mirrors life itself: beautiful, unpredictable, surprising, and always worth experiencing. It is timeless, contemplative, uncompromising, and consoling. In every respect, this is a sublime world music album.

Jan Willem Broek

© 2026 De Subjectivisten