How To Tell A Sound #6: Amirtha Kidambi & Eve Essex

Amirtha Kidambi, a New York-based composer, improvisor and performer, sits down with Eve Essex to listen to and discuss her recent projects. As the bandleader of quartet Elder Ones, she’s released two records including the critically celebrated “From Untruth” (Northern Spy) in Spring 2019; Kidambi reflects on the evolution of Elder Ones, including her turn to explicitly political texts and how audiences around the world have connected to them, and the addition of electronics to their sound. We also speak about her influences, including how her love of the music of John and Alice Coltrane overlaps with her Hindu upbringing, and how collaboration has helped her find her voice as a writer and performer. An accomplished instrumentalist and improvisor, she’s performed in diverse venues ranging from the DIY underground to Carnegie Hall, with an impressively varied group of experimental artists– we’ll listen to her work with Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, Robert Ashley, Lea Bertucci, and discuss projects with Muhal Richard Abrons, Darius Jones and more.