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KTU: 8 Armed Monkey
by Paul Olson
King Crimson percussionist Pat Mastellotto and ex-Crim Warr guitarist Trey Gunn (who work together as the duo TU) combine with accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen and samples maven Samuli Kosminen (known together as Kluster) to form KTU--pronounced K2." 8 Armed Monkey was essentially recorded live in Tokyo and Helsinki--the basic tracks, anyway--and then edited and structured by Mastelotto after the fact. While this is dense, often electronically-imbued music, it can essentially be played live; its teeming stew of samples and live playing ...
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by Eyal Hareuveni
Finnish accordion player Kimmo Pohjonen's compositions tend to lead him into ecstacy and a wild, orgiastic release. Pohjonen usually starts playing sitting, as calm as if he was tranquilized by shamanic medicine, but soon he surrenders to flushes of musical energy that hit him and push him into a twisted dance that challenges his huge accordion, until the inevitable climax. The same scenario repeats with each of Pohjonen's projects--solo, the Kluster duo with percussionist and sampling genius Samuli Kosminen, his ...
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by Michael McCaw
KTU, pronounced K2, has a lot of things working against it when it comes to finding potential listeners. When someone picks up an album that consists of musicians performing with a Warr guitar, vocal samples, rhythmic devices, and accordion, there isn't a reference point to really draw on that would even come close to the sounds these four individuals are able to create through their talents of alchemy. What they do have going for them is being on the consistently ...
read moreFrom Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta PT. 2
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The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
Guitarist-educator-author-jazz club impressario Pascal Bokar Thiam, who is of Senegalese descent, continues our conversation on the origins of blues & jazz and how that story has been distorted down through history. What was your ultimate mission in writing the book From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta" To share with the African American community that we are all Africans, that we have a history of our own, that we come from a great civilization; that we have settled this land here ...
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From Timbuktu to the Mississippi Delta (PT. 1)
Source:
The Independent Ear by Willard Jenkins
Guitarist-educator, and now author, Pascal (Bokar) Thiam aims to broaden the historical timeline of blues and jazz well beyond the romantic notion of 'up the Mississippi from New Orleans...' Though I had the pleasure of spinning Pascal's in-performance '07 CD Savannah Jazz Club on radio, I didn't have the opportunity to meet him until about two months ago at the first in a series of book signing & reading events for African Rhythms: the autobiography of Randy Weston (Composed by ...
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