Farida Amadou is one of the most exciting young players to emerge from the free-improvisation/experimental scene in Europe, having treated us to some explosive performances with Steve Noble and Thurston Moore here over the past few years.
Farida's own solo bass playing takes centre stage here, utilising the metallic timbre & rhythmic potential of her strings as the basis for two exploratory improvisations. Terse melodies, harmonic shards and rumbling patterns are sewed together in elapsing incendiary phrases, like Jamaladeen Tacuma's playing if he joined an industrial punk band instead of Ornette Coleman's group circa Body Meta.
With fx pedals Farida is able to open the possibilities of her instrument open, exploring thick fuzzed-phrases, spacious harmonic interplay, drones and more. We look forward to hearing more of this sort of thing from Farida in OTO, hopefully in the not-too-distant future.
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Farida Amadou - bass & electronics
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Recorded and mixed at Les Ateliers Claus - Brussels, by Christophe Albertijn august 19th 2020
Picture - Laurent Orseau
Artwork design - Oliver Barrett
Thanks to Tommy, Christophe, Laurent and Jérôme.
1 - MIX 001 : observe [18:13]
2 - MIX 006 : instability [20:36]
FARIDA AMADOU is a self-taught bass player based in Brussels, Belgium. The electric bass has been her main instrument since 2011. In 2013, she has started to play a lot of different musical genres, including blues, jazz and hip-hop; soon she started to dive into improvised music, and was rapidly identified by local collectives and musicians. After a year (2017) as bass player in Belgian punk band Cocaine Piss, Farida decided to focus on her solo improvisation practice and collaborations with musicians such as Steve Noble, Thurston Moore, Peter Brötzmann, Terrie Ex, Lukas Koening, Pat Thomas and Julien Desprez, among others, occasionally also featuring with groups such as Jerusalem in My Heart and Moor Mother.
