Amirtha Kidambi is known for her improvisational vocabulary as a vocalist, utilizing experimental timbral techniques and infusing aesthetics and methodologies from Carnatic music, noise, rock, free jazz and classical avant-gardes. As a performer she has collaborated with a wide range of composers, such as Mary Halvorson in Code Girl, Darius Jones, William Parker, Matana Roberts, Maria Grand and the late Robert Ashley and Muhal Richard Abrams. As a composer, she leads the vocal ensemble Lines of Light, is co-founder of a duo with Lea Bertucci and is the bandleader of Elder Ones. Thematically and sonically, Kidambi is drawn to the subversive and interrogative, driven by social and political issues of inequity and injustice, and aiming to disturb the status quo.
After a journey into wordless abstraction on Elder Ones’ debut Holy Science (2016), Kidambi felt the urgency of the political moment required a direct and verbal call to action. The lyric fragments in From Untruth (2019) critique power structures of capitalism, racism, colonialism and fascism, distilling heavy post-colonial theory into concentrated visceral battle cries. The instrumentation adds a layer of technology, with Kidambi on both Indian harmonium and analog synthesizer and Max Jaffe's drumming talents extended to electronic Sensory Percussion. The frenzied improvising of Matt Nelson on soprano sax and effects and gravity of Nick Dunston on bass, anchor the music in tradition, while pushing into new futurist realms. The aesthetic seamlessly reels from modal meditation, atonal expressionism, free improvisation and melodic invention, to unabashed bursts of punk rock energy.
The Mid-Atlantic Arts USAI grant makes it possible for Amirtha Kidambi and Elder Ones' to spread the message of post-colonial and anti-capitalist protest across the Indian subcontinent, building solidarity with artists and activists between the US and India.