Amirtha Kidambi's Elder Ones | Vision 25 (3 of 3)

Amirtha Kidambi - voice, harmonium, synthesizer
Matt Nelson - soprano saxophone, effects
Lester St. Louis - cello
Eva Lawitts - bass, effects
Max Jaffe - drums, sensory percussion
Performed as part of Arts for Art Vision Festival 25, Thursday, July 2, 2021 at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NYC.
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"In the last year, many of American society’s unjust hierarchies and system failures were laid bare. As I processed the pandemic in seclusion, I turned my energies away from music, especially as our industry came to a halt and devoted myself to racial justice organizing and activism. It felt like an incredibly important moment to dig in and come together. For most musicians, we spend much of our time on the road and away from our communities. For over a year, we have been able to do crucial work in our cities and on our streets, through mutual aid, community organizing and protesting. At this crucial juncture, I feel we absolutely cannot return to the status quo. Instead, we must come together with a new self-awareness that came from total collapse and rise from the ashes." - Amirtha Kidambi
Elder Ones, critiques power structures of capitalism, racism, colonialism and fascism, distilling heavy post-colonial theory into concentrated visceral battle cries. The instrumentation’s technological layer acts as a metaphor for modernity, with Kidambi on analog synthesizer and Max Jaffe’s drumming talents extended to electronic Sensory Percussion. The frenzied improvising of Matt Nelson on soprano sax and gravity of Eva Lawitts on bass and electronics, anchor the music in the tradition of free jazz, while pushing into new futurist realms. The aesthetic seamlessly reels from modal meditation, atonal expressionism, free improvisation and melodic invention, to unabashed bursts of punk rock energy.
About the Artist
Amirtha Kidambi is the composer and bandleader of her quartet Elder Ones, with Matt Nelson, Max Jaffe and Nick Dunston and the leader of her vocal quartet Lines of Light, featuring Anaïs Maviel, Emilie Lesbros and Jean-Carla Rodea. Kidambi is also a regular collaborator of Lea Bertucci, in a voice and analog electronics duo, is a member of guitarist Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, featured in various projects with composer and alto saxophonist Darius Jones, a longtime contributor of Charlie Looker’s early music inspired dark folk band Seaven Teares and a soloist in Pat Spadine's analog percussion and light ensemble Ashcan Orchestra. She has collaborated and performed with New York luminaries in the experimental and creative music community including Tyshawn Sorey, Matana Roberts, Ingrid Laubrock, Maria Grand, Brandon Lopez, Daniel Carter, Sam Newsome, Trevor Dunn, Ava Mendoza, Matteo Liberatore and veteran improviser William Parker.
www.amirthakida...
Film production by Moon Lasso: moonlasso.com/
Audio by Stephen Schmidt.
About Arts for Art
Arts for Art is dedicated to the exceptional creativity that originated in the African American multi-arts jazz culture that utilizes improvisation to express a larger, more positive dream of inclusion and freedom.
www.artsforart...
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