Home » Jazz Musicians » Annie Chen Discography

Guardians

Annie Chen

Label: Self Produced
Released: 2024
Views: 376

Tracks

Rozpacz (Despair); Underground Dance; Rosemary's Lullaby; Güle Güle Istanbul; Guardians Suite I – The Northern Eyes; Guardians Suite II – The Whale River Song; Guardians Suite III – Jellyfish All Around; Guardians Suite IV – Vanished Tails, No Return.

Personnel

Annie Chen

vocals

Satoshi Takeishi

drums

Marius Duboule

guitar

Fung Chern Hwei

violin

Mathew Muntz

bass

Vitor Gonçalves

piano

Alex LoRe

saxophone, alto

Album Description

Annie Chen Guardians is a project born in 2022, a septet of jazz and improvised music featuring some of New York's finest musicians. The band is an explosive combination of nationalities and cultural backgrounds (Chinese, Brazilian, Japanese, Swiss, French, American and Malaysian) brought together with a focus on orchestration, sound texture, energy and improvisation. With a thematic and sometimes theatrical approach, the band explores the drama of modern society through a multiethnic lens. This album's repertoire is based around a central suite that gives the band its title "Guardians", a questioning of the destructive behavior humans have on the planet and its impact on human and animal life. --- A signature trait of Annie Chen's music is its integration of experimental aesthetics with a strong sense of imagery and narrative. In her original compositions as well as her interpretations of the music of others, Annie's approach straddles the line between abstract and programmatic music, aided by unconventional song structures, unique instrumentation, and a highly collaborative band concept. These properties are on full display in the music presented in the newly composed Guardians suite, which provides the record's thematic center. Preceding the suite are two new arrangements of older compositions by Annie and two interpretations of pieces by 20th-century Polish composers, all of which are drawn into the musical orbit of Guardians to form a cohesive and evocative body of work. Through this unique set of music, Annie and her band question the relationship between humans and nature and its consequences: crisis, loss, and the possibility of hope. (excerpt from liner notes by Mathew Muntz)

Next >
Secret Treetop