Recording: Kang-Kenney-Timar-Khavarzamini-Salek

Artist: Evyind Kang/Jessika Kenney/Andrew Timar/Pedram Khavarzamini/Araz Salek

Song: unknown title, in two parts^*

Recorded at Jam Factory (Intersection – Day 2), September 1, 2017.

Evyind Kang/Jessika Kenney/Andrew Timar/Pedram Khavarzamini/Araz Salek - unknown title, part 1

Evyind Kang/Jessika Kenney/Andrew Timar/Pedram Khavarzamini/Araz Salek - unknown title, part 2

In recent years, the Intersection Festival would normally consist of a paid concert, usually the night before the day-long extravaganza in Yonge-Dundas Square. This year, however, under the continued guidance of Burn Down The Capital's Tad Michalak the festival expanded to four events, including a pair of concerts at The Jam Factory.

When Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang last came to town, their set included an ad hoc throwdown with some local musicians, including suling player Andrew Timar. This time, that concept was more fully-fleshed out into a full-on new band, bringing in local ace Persian musicians Pedram Khavarzamini (tombak) and Araz Salek (tar). The resulting group mixed its Persian and Indonesian instrumentation with a mix of music traditions (even including some Korean round singing that Kenney & Kang had picked up on a recent trip there). Kenney's vocals (taken from Rumi's poetry and related sources) pulled everything together in the mystic haze of a modal trance. Hopefully this far-flung group will get more opportunities to dig deeper in these veins.

[You can see some footage from this set over at Brandon Caswell Douglas' Intersection playlist.]

^* Does anyone know the title to this one? Please leave a comment!

Recording: Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang

Artist: Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang

Song: Her Sword

Recorded at Jam Factory ("The Music Gallery's Departures Series"), July 22, 2015.

Jessika Kenney & Eyvind Kang - Her Sword

A return of the Music Gallery's offsite "Departures" series headed across the Don Valley to Jam Factory, home of co-curator Tad Michalak's Feast in The East series. The brick-and-beam loft was a perfectly casual environment to settle in for some serene sounds. The night was put together to provide a rare local show for Seattle-based explorers Jessika Kenney (vocals) and Eyvind Kang (viola). Their hour-long set showed several of their different approaches to their idiosyncratic mix of Persian mysticism and gamelan percolations. Kang's plucked strings and Kenney's vocals were at the heart of all the music — for one extended selection they left the stage and played while pacing in circles around the audiences, creating a uniquely-spacialized experience. The selection presented here saw Kenney add some subtly-psychdelic effects to her vocals, shifting this 12th century Persian poem from the gamelan-abetted version heard on her beautiful ATRIA album and into a "pop" realm not too far removed from, say, Jerusalem in My Heart's recent excursions with Suuns. The set ended with the pair being joined by Andrew Timar and Bill Parsons for a couple numbers, including a re-arrangement of James Tenney's "August Harp".