#ideologic organ

[iamlisteningto]

Leila Bordreuil + Kali Malone’s Music For Intersecting Planes

[zef-zef]

Album Art for:

Sunn O))) Meets Nurse With Wound - The Iron Soul Of Nothing (Ideologic Organ, 2011)

[burlveneer-music]

Kukangendai - Mure - minimalist rhythmic shenanigans a la Dawn of Midi (from Palm LP on Ideologic Organ)

Junya Noguchi – Guitar, Vocal Keisuke Koyano – Bass Hideaki Yamada – Drums

Kukangendai is a kick ass rock trio from Kyoto (Tokyo transplants). When I first hear this band live I was instantly transfixed by their minimalist yet illusory primitive, polyrythmic and structural, memory evoking rock narratives. Their energy is completely and transparently palpable yet handled with restraint of the pleasure of a disciplined form dealing with time and articulation. They are a power trio of bass, drums and guitar but the music they play is as much the limbic system of a forest than it is a geode. They started in 2006. They left Tokyo to Kyoto and started the cult venue Soto ("Outside") "to listen to music they hadn't heard yet" a few years later. They collaborated with Ryuichi Sakamoto last year. They reminded me of James Brown on a heavy binge of Bastro, there's a deep current of both archaic musical tastes and the human desire for articulating that archaism in there, but you shake your ass and get the shouting in… in a punk basement … 13th century version of Breadwinner, the bare soul version. I'm honoured and proud to work with this tribe, and to count them amongst friends.-Stephen O'Malley, February 2019, Paris

[musicmakesyousmart]

Nazoranai - Self-titled

Ideologic Organ

2012

[dustedmagazine]

Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar – Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani/ Raga Yaman (Ideologic Organ)

Nineteen: the staggering number of genealogic iterations separating Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar from his ancestors who founded the familial artistic tradition known as Dagar gharana, a variant of the Hindustani classical idiom of dhrupad. There really isn’t a correlate in Western music with a commensurate degree of uninterrupted musical history. Dagar’s stature and impact wasn’t simply based on antiquity and extent of lineage. The first in his family to adopt the rudra veena as a principal means of expression, he made alterations and advancements to both instrument and technique, to better adapt it to the music’s vocal aspirations and underpinnings. Dagar embraced a parallel career as educator not just in his native country, but also abroad starting in 1968 with a teaching post at Wesleyan University. Tenure at the University of Washington beginning in 1974 led to a number of public and private performances, which now form the bulwark of his available stateside discography. Ragas Abhogi & Vardhani and Raga Yaman source from concert tapes created a week apart in March of 1986.

Dhrupad was originally a devotional style of vocal music designed to accompany religious activities in Hindi temples. Later changes beginning in the 16th century adapted its forms to the secular settings and preferences of the royal courts, although by the 19th century the style largely fell out of favor in terms of wealthy patronage. The Dagar family persisted through these changes, cementing its prominence as purveyors and preservationists of the art. The veena was a secondary, although largely private, means of expression for various members dating back to Dagar’s grandfather. His choice to bring the instrument out of the shadows led to a renaissance and he was also the first to introduce it to Western audiences in person through both performance and instruction. Dagar’s veena was made of teak rather than traditional bamboo. Enlarged tubing and increased string gauging coupled with an added wooded spine and sliding frets created a deeper, more resonant timbre. Dagar also altered his playing posture from the traditional diagonal shoulder-to-hip positioning to a horizontal one, much like that for lap steel.

Despite his uncontested eminence, Dagar’s commercially available discography remains bafflingly scant. A two-disc set on the Nimbus label, a single-disc of a recital with brother Zia Fariduddin from 1968, and a handful of others from his stateside years on the specialist Raga imprint are all that are in circulation outside of India. That paucity makes these documents all the more valuable. Each presents Dagar in different context that brings out distinct aspects of his playing. The first, recorded with a pair of microphones in the living room of husband and wife patrons, Shantha and Niranjan Benegal, is the more informal and intimate of the two. Dagar focuses the majority of temporal space on the alap sections of the titular ragas, introducing the melodic contours of each peace in gradual and deliberate fashion. Dagar’s only accompaniment, other than the occasional audience noise, is pupil Annie Penta whose tanpura supplies a steady, sympathetic drone. The carefully constructed meends, or gliding string bends, Dagar develops during these sections are often mesmerizing in their microtonal congruity and euphoniousness.

Recorded six days later at a formal concert co-sponsored by the UW Ethnomusicology department and a collegiate Indian group the rendition of Raga Yaman. Yaman was purportedly one of Dagar’s most favored vehicles and a fundamental component of his teaching curriculum. Penta is back and joined by Gaythatri Rajapur on second tanpura. The performance also incorporates a gat section for Manik Munde on barrel-shaped pakhawaj, a cousin of the more familiar to Western ears tabla and preferred percussive accompaniment for larger stringed instruments like the veena. Centering on a single raga allows Dagar even more latitude with his intricate alap improvisations, which spool and ripple across a thirty-four minute expanse. The subsequent compositional jod section is also extended and rife with warmly resonating and intersecting drones. A digitally-transferred recording means heightened aural clarity and even the sporadic interjections of a coughing audience member can’t compromise the enveloping meditative cast of the unfolding odyssey.

Derek Taylor

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Kali Malone + Drew McDowall’s Magnetism

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Sunn O))) Meets Nurse With Wound - Ra at Dawn Part One {Rapture, at last} from: Sunn O))) Meets Nurse With Wound - The Iron Soul Of Nothing (Ideologic Organ, 2011)

[iamlisteningto]

Kali Malone’s All Life Long