By Keith Prosk
Amirtha Kidambi and Luke Stewart freely play seven environments for voice,
bass, pedals, and amplifier on the 43’ Zenith/Nadir.
This is the first time they’ve released a recording together.
The context guides towards a motif of high and low. The words in the title
carry not just a location but a quality, specifically of power and fortune.
And the notes reveal the recording occurred in the months following George
Floyd’s murder, in which intense despair and hope coexisted, for the truth of
the matter and that it might finally provoke meaningful change. The sound
reflects perhaps similarly polar things in several ways. In electric and
acoustic sides. In the registers of this voice and bass. In peaks and troughs
of electric current and pulsing resonances.
The fiery electric half hisses and pops like oil in a pan at its most
simmering moments, maintaining through high volume, high density, or even just
crackling pitch clarity a volatile presence. Bottle-rocket woos and EVP
ululations accompany feedback freakouts. Maqamesque lines interlace over deep
bass drones. Vocals choke alongside purring motor amplifier. Syncopation from
distortion clipping for dystopian funk.
The subtler sounds of the acoustic side make clearer what was also in the
first, that these two move together and complement each other in volume,
density, and texture. But beyond the mellifluousness of its angelic chorus or
plucked lyricism, melodic song or melancholy arco intonations, this half
allows space for the sonorous resonance of bass’ big body and the rich
harmonic depth of a full formant to interact.
I have a hunch this is the point. To not just present poles but the
interaction or complementary action of them. From the complex feelings
surrounding the context to the nearness of the words on the page in the title
and the relativism of their meanings to the general principle of an
improvising duo, the vibrancy of things is what is in between.
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1 comments:
What does "43'" mean? Is the performance space 43 feet long? I don't get it.
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