Amirtha Kidambi // Elder Ones: Mother Tongues

Amirtha Kidambi (voice) performs her compositions with Matt Nelson (saxophone), Brandon Lopez (bass), and Max Jaffe (drums).

Amirtha Kidambi discusses her developing artistic practice, methods for working with her quartet, and the important role that communication plays in art.

The quartet performing the compositions of vocalist Amirtha Kidambi (Seaven Teares/Elizabeth-Caroline Unit) lies nestled in a venn diagram of musical spheres and communities in New York City. Her and her collaborators, Matt Nelson (Battle Trance/Tune-Yards), Brandon Lopez (Vape Drip), and dMax Jaffe (JOBS, Unnatural Ways) have crossed paths in the DIY underbelly, in incestuous circles of free improvisers, and uncomfortable chairs in concert halls of angular new music. The instrumentalists chosen for this project draw from a wide variety of vocabularies from hip-hop to free improv, each bringing their own highly individual sound to the group. The quartet uses composed material and loose structures as a template for improvisation. Oscillating between worlds of modal Sufi-like circular grooves and free improvisation to jagged rhythmic precision and punishing brutality, Thyagaraja, Coltrane or Stockhausen could be equally suspected as illegitimate fathers of their sound.

Amirtha’s curatorial efforts at The Silent Barn focus on community building through fostering interaction between groups that do not typically cross paths, but share ideas both musically and philosophically. These ideas manifest in the series TONGUES: Traditional Indian and Experimental Music. The series presents traditional Indian performances both Hindustani and Carnatic alongside contemporary experimenters in free improvisation, electronics, composition and other areas. Tongues has featured Brian Chase, Robbie Lee, Rajna and Anjna Swaminathan, Dada Tapan Kanti Baidhya, Shubhangi Sakhalkar, Che Chen, Matana Roberts and Peter Evans. She is also an activist and supporter of the Black Lives Matters Movement collaborating with Matana Roberts on Public Meetings and with Peter Evans on an awareness concert and fundraiser for police brutality victim Akai Gurley in Spring 2015 at The Silent Barn. Amirtha is an avid anti-racist and these views are reflected not only through activism but also in the music and collaborations in which she chooses to participate.

Produced By

Jim Staley

Directed and Photographed By

Wolfgang Daniel