The second release by Amirtha Kidambi’s ensemble Elder Ones, From Untruth is comprised of four pieces grappling with issues of power, oppression, capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, violence and the shifting nature of truth. This music means to give the listener momentary relief from the anxiety and pain caused by living in our current reality.
From Untruth builds upon the bedrock foundation of Kidambi’s previous compositional and conceptual work with Elder Ones, while forging uncharted territory. After a journey into wordless abstraction on Holy Science (Northern Spy, November 2016), Kidambi felt the urgency of the political moment required a direct and verbal call to action.
The instrumentation adds a layer of technology 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 Nick Dunston on bass, anchor the music in the tradition of free jazz, while it pushes 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.
This is Elder Ones at an unadulterated breaking point; on the edge of a knife that cuts.
Amirtha Kidambi: Compositions, Vocals, Harmonium, Synthesizer Matt Nelson: Soprano Saxophone, Moog Nick Dunston: Bass Max Jaffe: Drums, Electronic Sensory Percussion
Recorded at Birdwatcher Studios, Big Indian, NY Engineer: Chris Weiss Mixing and Mastering: Matt Mehlan
> The Wire - April 2019, page 55 Emerging from New York's Brooklyn Raga Massive Rajna Swaminathan and Amirtha Kidambi's Elder Ones provide new contexts for traditional Indian musical strategies by Daniel Spicer [...] In 2016, her quartet Elder Ones – featuring Matt Melson on soprano saxophone, Nick Dunston on bass and Max Jaffe playing drums and percussion – released their debut album Holy Science on which Kidambi blended Carnartic vocal techniques with the free jazz ululations of Linda Sharrock to indulge in worldless ecstasies. On her new album “From Untruth”, however, she introduces fragmentary lyrical invocations to tackle themes of colonialism, violence and the inequalities of global capitalism [...] – Daniel Spicer
TJG: Could you talk about all the influences that are present in your music? AK: One of the most exciting things about the band was the fact that being a bicultural person, being an Indian-American, my experience in the world is already this really hybrid cultural experience. And then on top of that you add engaging with all these different types of music—since I was young, I have been exposed to Béla Bartók , and Tchaikovsky and Duke Ellington, everything. In elementary school, I sang Bach, St. Matthew’s Passion, when I was in fourth grade, and all of that was happening at the same time as I was studying Indian dance, going to see Carnatic music all the time, singing Indian devotional music, and my mom had Carnatic music on in the house 24/7. And then I was really into metal and punk and all this other stuff, and 90s R&B, was a huge vocal influence that was what I was singing all the time in the house. All of that is there, that’s my lived cultural experience as a person in America. [...]
> Review Elder Ones' "Holy Science" @ Pitchfork Magazine A fixture of New York’s experimental scene, the vocalist Amirtha Kidambi makes her bandleading debut on Holy Science, fusing classical Indian music, drone, and free jazz with an original perspective. [...]
La Mecánica Popular has been featured at NYC Central Park Summerstage for the 50th Anniversary of Fania Records, Brooklyn Museum, Levitation Festival, Queens Museum, BBC, CNN, and NPR.
Reviews of new LP "Roza Cruz" (Names You Can Trust 2018, NYC)
Since the release of their critically acclaimed debut album in 2013 on Names You Can Trust, La Mecánica Popular has quietly been contemplating the evolution of the group's sound, philosophy, and overall approach to making music. Band leader Efraín Rozas' experimental nature has continually pushed the boundaries of his own definition of not only Latin American music, but its broader relationship with music's global culture and history. The sound of "psychedelic salsa" that LMP helped capture in their debut was destined for further outside-the-box interpretations, and with the formation of a new quintet lineup over the last few years, LMP began to incorporate a more free, improvised and instrumental-focused performance of Rozas' increasingly radical compositions. The band subsequently took this liberated approach directly into the studio, recording Roza Cruz live, in its entirety. It was a cathartic experience, a necessary methodology for the new album's concept that embraced the intimate performance of its players and did away with standard techniques of isolation and overdubs.
The evolution of the band's sound on Roza Cruz brings forth a blend of styles rarely heard together, a touch reminiscent of electric-era Miles Davis or Eddie Palmieri at his most experimental, as the driving force of timbales and congas provide a bed for a wave of lush, analog amplification that mirrors the dueling leads of fuzz guitar and electric piano. But as far out as those instruments take the listener, the raw rhythm — the clave — always keeps it tethered to the earth and the dance, a cerebral yet visceral gift for the mind and feet.
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