Amadou/Cambien/Rempis

ABOUT

This new transatlantic collaboration unites three renowned improvisers in a stellar first time matchup.  Electric bassist Farida Amadou’s stratospheric rise over the last several years has been shaking the roofbeams of the European improvised music scene.  She’s participated in high flying collaborations with heavyweight improvisers like Peter Brötzmann, Steve Noble, and Thurston Moore, many of which have been documented on the Antwerp-based Dropa Disc label.  She’s also been touring relentlessly during that time.  Jonas Cambien on piano and electronics, a fellow Belgian like Amadou, has been living in Norway since 2008.  During his tenure there, he’s become an integral part of the thriving Norwegian improvised music scene, with an extremely broad set of pursuits.  He works regularly with his own trio featuring saxophonist André Roligheten and Andreas Wildhagen on drums, is a founding member of the new music ensemble Aksiom, and has worked and studied Arabic music extensively in Cairo with a number of Egyptian musicians.  Saxophonist and label founder Dave Rempis is a cornerstore of the Chicago improvised music scene, and it was on a shared bill with Amadou in Antwerp in November 2021 where they first hatched a plot to combine forces.

 One year later, in November 2022, those plans coalesced around a short tour of Belgium and Netherlands with Amadou’s regular collaborator Cambien.  With the gracious support of their friends from Dropa Disc and Sound in Motion in Antwerp, who organized and recorded the proceedings, they were able to document the entire first day of their collaboration with an afternoon recording session and live evening concert in Eindhoven, NL at Paviljoen Ongehoorde Muziek.  That material was released on the trio’s debut album On The Blink in October 2023, on Aerophonic Records.  With both Amadou and Cambien doubling on electronics, the sonic range of the trio’s palette far exceeds what three musicians could normally put forth.  And don’t let the lack of a drummer fool you – the rhythmic drive of this band is intense.  Whether pushed forward by Amadou’s percussive approach to her main ax, by Rempis floating pointed lines on top of a bed of electronic noise, or by Cambien offering up calliope-like repetition at the keyboard, the momentum here is unstoppable.  Of course that doesn’t prevent the band from sometimes swirling into masses of sound like a summer storm.  In fact, it’s their remarkable ability to patiently gather those swirls up into cohesive and sustained momentum that gives this new band such a unique sound.

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PRESS

“The way these three musicians manage to incorporate electronic elements into their sound is truly amazing. Perhaps it is due to the addition of electronics by two of the musicians–bassist Farida Amadou and pianist Jonas Cambien–expanding the realm of possibilities. It could also be attributed to the electric bass, which seamlessly blends the layers together. Or, their skillful combination of a raw approach to their instruments resulting in a sound that is both metallic and ethereal.In any case, this album is mesmerizing and unquestionably one of the most original trio albums of the year.”

-Best of Jazz

“The reedwork of Dave Rempis is in a wonderfully electric setting here – next to the electric bass and electronics of Farida Amadou, and the piano and additional electronics of Jonas Cambien – both players who seem to really bring a lot of different sounds out of Dave's work on alto and tenor saxes! Yet if you know Rempis, you know what a wonderfully adaptive improviser he can be – and the mix of electro and acoustic elements in the record almost seems to take the early experiments of Anthony Braxton and Richard Tietelbaum and push them to a whole new level – maybe in part because the work on the strings of the bass and the tones of the piano seem to widen the color palette of the performance in really great ways.”

-Dusty Groove