Few discoveries

 

With words spoken in Arabic, Armenian, and English, Mary Kouyoumdjian's "2 Suitcases" is in dedication to her parents' immigration story, as they settled in San Francisco from the Lebanese Civil War with only their 1 year old son and two suitcases. The piece was commissioned by the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble and later arranged for Eighth Blackbird.  

& to listen to "Silent Cranes" with the Kronos Quartet

"Silent Cranes" is inspired by the Armenian folk song “Groung (Crane)” in which the singer calls out to the migratory bird, begging for word from their homeland, only to have the crane respond with silence and fly away. Composed in memory of the Armenian Genocide.

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In the early 2000s, Tokyo's SuperDeluxe was a meeting point for many experimental musicians, both international and Japanese. This duo sprung from a live collaboration at the venue in 2006, where Machida was experimenting with processed steel pan and Lyall was largely performing using a tabletop guitar setup with a range of electronics.

"Premeditation" is Cal Lyall : 5-string banjo
  &  Yoshio Machida : steelpans, gamelan, metal slit drums 

 

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Nyokabi Kariũki, born in 1998, is a Kenyan composer and performer based between New York,
Maryland and Nairobi. Her sonic imagination is ever-evolving, with compositions ranging from
classical contemporary to choral music, film, experimental pop; and further includes explorations into
sound art, electronics, and (East) African musical traditions. 

"This record "Premeditation" was written after an extended period of illness (long COVID) in 2021, reflecting on how being sick suddenly gave an urgency to my understanding of the body I live in...To want to share a painful story is to also find curious ways to protect yourself as you do so: looking towards methali (Swahili proverbs) to nourish the lyrics; asking text-to-speech to say phrases you struggle to repeat; recording stream-of-consciousness voice notes so that you don’t have to sit long in thoughts; and to find, in sound — from field recordings, to dreamy improvisations by musical friends — a way to express visceral feelings and noisy thoughts." NK words

with

Nyokabi Kariuki - voices & clarinet
Yaz Lancaster - violin & voice 
Michael Denis Ó Callaghan - trumpet
Chris O’Leary - drums
Ian Fales - double bass

 

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