## Holy Science - Artist(s): [[Elder Ones]], [[Amirtha Kidambi]], [[Brandon Lopez]] - Release Year: [[2016]] - Ostensible or actual genres: [[experimental]], [[jazz]], [[free jazz]], [[improvisation]] - [Bandcamp Link](https://amirthakidambi.bandcamp.com/album/holy-science) Notes: #album #👍 %% ## Tracks: | No. | Title | Featuring | Notes | | --- | ----- | --------- | ----- | | | | | | %% ## Bandcamp Copy > 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.” > > Kidambi formally trained in classical music, singing works by avant-gardists including Nono and Stockhausen, but the pull of free jazz and Alice Coltrane drew her toward a different path. The influence of both Alice and John Coltrane is especially apparent on the new album, as is her work with composer and saxophonist Darius Jones, and her study of Carnatic music. > > While in Darius Jones's a cappella group, Kidambi developed a language for wordless vocals, freeing her from being tied to syntax, a technique she uses through most of Holy Science. The music is anchored by bass-lines and drones on the harmonium, often doubled on the bass by Brandon Lopez. Matt Nelson on the soprano saxophone...  more > > credits > > released November 11, 2016 > > Amirtha Kidambi - vocals, harmonium, compositions > Matt Nelson - soprano sax > Brandon Lopez - bass > Max Jaffe - drums > > Commissioned by the Jerome Foundation and Roulette NYC > > Recorded at EMPAC > > Engineered by Jeff Svatek > Mastered by Weasel Walter > >