Name: Azure
Brand: Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

SOMA051LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2023-11-17

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Cargo

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

0647581407950

Total Cap

Black LP

SOMA051CD

2023-12-08

0647581407967

Artist

Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang

Genre GB

Modern Composition

Label GB

Ideologic Organ

Ideologic Organ is a music label that was launched on April 14, 2011. Curated and art directed by Stephen O'Malley, it has been a platform for his publishing company and artistic endeavors in album and book design. From 2011 to 2021, the label was manufactured and distributed by Editions Mego, and since 2021, Shelter Press has taken over these responsibilities.

Under the guidance of Stephen O'Malley, Ideologic Organ has become synonymous with quality music releases and captivating visual aesthetics. With an impressive catalog spanning over a decade, the label has showcased innovative artists who push boundaries across various genres.

As both a publishing company and art direction entity, Ideologic Organ represents Stephen O'Malley's dedication to creating immersive experiences through sound and visuals. The label continues to be a vital force in the music industry, providing a platform for unique voices to be heard.

Having each followed their own distinct trajectory of exploration for decades - interweaving rigorous experimentalism with diverse touchstones of cross-cultural expression - and building upon roughly 20 years working as a duo, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang return with Azure, their third full-length with Ideologic Organ. Among their most ambitious outings to date, comprising five new compositions recorded in Seattle during the Spring and Summer of 2022, this remarkable body of sonority draws upon the traditions of Persian ghazal, Korean poetry, Dhrupad, Javanese music, free improvisation, and numerous others, culminating as a singular gesture of contemporary Minimalism that glacially unfolds across the length of the LP.

&nbsp;Hailing from the Pacific North West, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang have retained a strong presence within the context of American experimental music since their emergence during the mid 1990s, each producing some of grippingly original music to have appeared over the subsequent years. Kenney is an experimental vocalist, composer, and teacher, focused on the transformative powers of the voice and sound’s relation to mystical experience. In addition to her collaborations with Oren Ambarchi, Tashi Wada, Avey Tare, Alvin Lucier, Sarah Davachi, Ensemble Nist-Nah, Sunn O))), and numerous others, she is known for her performance of Indonesian vocal music (sindhenan) and Persian vocal music (radifs), as well as her own compositions drawing on elements of both. Kang, a composer and multi-instrumentalist who is highly regarded for his unique approach to the viola, has worked extensively across numerous fields, appearing on albums by Bill Frisell, Joe McPhee, Sun City Girls, Wayne Horvitz , Ikue Mori, Laurie Anderson, Aki Onda, John Zorn, Blonde Redhead , William Hooker, Animal Collective , Lou Reed, Oren Ambarchi, and numerous others, as well creating as a striking body of solo works that incorporate elements of his Icelandic, Danish and Korean heritage.

A hypnotic return to Kenney and Kang’s unique expression of “unison music”, Azure is among the the duo’s most paired down and minimal efforts in more than a decade. It’s five composition are underscored by allusions to the natural world and drifting temporarily - “like a haze of light across the sky. The morning followed after watching the moon, then the sea” - producing a profound calm that rises in arcs of tonal colour.

&nbsp;The album’s opener, Eclipse, is a composition built around the phrase “inside the eclipse”, drawn from Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s novel, Dictee, and follows the Korean American writer’s suggestions of method and technique. Leaving aching silences between each utterance - Kenney’s sparse vocal interventions mirrored by Kang’s delicate viola tones - the piece’s collective elements produces a remarkable tension, bubbling within its spacious calm.

The title track, Azure, takes its name from a pun on the Persian «az u» or «from them”, and is a meditation on the closing rhyme of ghazal 413 from the Divan of Hafez of Shiraz, az u (from/of them), râh az u, âh az u, “the moon from them, the path from them, the sighs from them”. Imbued with sorrow and release, across the piece Kenney’s vocals and Kang’s viola weave and dance against a shruti drone, calling forth echos of lost moments in far off worlds.

This is followed by three pieces that incorporate traces of disparate cultural traditions into their forms. Ocean is an experiment with different intensities of pulsation, inspired by Korean sung poetry and Kagok playing, the Indian Classical techniques of Dhrupad and gamak, and ring modulation’s use of two simultaneous frequencies - in this case one being agreed upon and the other improvised - which assemble an enveloping expanse of intoxicating harmonics and vibrato. For Forest Floor, Kenney’s long-tone vocalisation play on the meanings of ‘tan’ or body, and ‘nur’ or light, ‘Chegel’ and ‘Khotan’ from ghazal 327 of the Divan of Hafez, and the Javanese names of pitches and associated body parts. Dancing at the boundaries of sorrow and joy, her voice, paced in perfect harmony to Kang’s viola, seems to propose alternate realities of what ecstatic music might be. The album’s final piece, draws upon Glenna Cole Allee’s book, Hanford Reach, incorporating words spoken within by by interviewees living or working in the tribal territories of Wanapum, Yakama, Cayuse, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and many others, on or near the Hanford Nuclear Site, in the state of Washington. Among the album’s most dynamic and powerful efforts - drones and pulsing tones playing counterpoint to Kenney’s soaring vocals - the duo, inexplicably, imbues impressions of the Pacific Northwest with numerous creative touchstones that blur perceptions of both culture and time.

With each of Azure’s discrete expressions, Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang ask us to hold/stop/wait/listen at the edges of knowability, allowing the world continues around us, as they draw us into realms of audibility where breathing and blinking might meld with each tone and join the sonorous landscape being formed before our ears. A startlingly gesture of contemporary experimentalism and minimalism, Azure pushes us to find a deeper rhythm; to move, grow, and form our listening bodies towards each composition.

Azure

Music GB

Discover Azure by Jessika Kenney and Eyvind Kang. A mesmerizing blend of Persian ghazal, Korean poetry, and free improvisation. Available on Ideologic Organ.