Amirtha Kidambi

Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones join We Jazz Records for their third LP New Monuments, to be released on March 15th.

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.

Amirtha Kidambi’s Elder Ones join We Jazz Records for their third LP New Monuments, to be released on March 15th.

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.

We can reasonably assume that New York avant-gardist Amirtha Kidambi does not want us to "eat the rich." That being said, she delivers the oft-quoted line with enough snarling disdain to approximate what a more literal order would sound like. By the time she completes the thought — "or die starving" — don't be surprised if you find yourself contemplating its ethics just a bit too deeply.

As Ben Ratliff wrote in the New York Times, the aggressive and sublime first album by the band Elder Ones, Holy Science, is a kind of gauge for how strong and flexible the scene of young musicians in New York's improvised and experimental music world can be. At the center of it are drones and phonemes. The group's leader, the 30-year-old composer and singer Amirtha Kidambi, holds forth behind a harmonium, the small keyboard instrument with hand-pumped bellows; it's commonly used in bhajan, the Indian devotional-singing tradition that was central to her musical experience while growing up in a South Indian family.

Artlessly Falling is the second album by Mary Halvorson's Code Girl. Its core remains Halvorson on guitar; Tomas Fujiwara on drums; Amirtha Kidambi on vocals, and Michael Formanek on bass. Trumpeter Adam O'Farrill replaces Ambrose Akinmusire, and Maria Grand is added on tenor saxophone and voice. The date also includes three vocal cameos by Robert Wyatt. A primary influence on Halvorson, she composed these songs especially for him. Her lyrics throughout reflect not only detailed attention but a methodology in which each poem strategically conforms to its accompanying musical construct. Artlessly Falling showcases deeply focused, expansively articulated, abstract musical languages that remain warm and welcoming, even amid dissonance.

The Oversoul Manual is an a cappella work comprised of 15 pieces performed by his vocal quartet, The Elizabeth-Caroline Unit (featuring the great vocal talents of Amirtha Kidambi, Sarah Martin, Jean-Carla Rodea, and Kristin Slipp), it utilizes a new language / compositional approach fully created by Darius Jones. The album is both an elemental part of Jones™ Mani™sh Boy mythology and a fully illuminated / radical expression of his profound love for the voice, which remains at the foundation of Darius™ singularly potent creative life.