TONE FESTIVAL: Zoh Amba & Chris Corsano + Farida Amadou + Ways

ZOH AMA & CHRIS CORSANO
Saxophonist / flautist / composer Zoh Amba (Tzadik Records) bring a fresh voice to the world of avant jazz, mixing heavy free jazz with folk melodies and circular refrains. Teaming up with one of the best free drummer around, Chris Corsano (Bjork, Bill Orcutt, Sir Richard Bishop, Paul Flaherty, Joe McPhee, etc) this duo moves from noisey improvisations to slow sombre moments full of beautiful sorrow. Corsano moves about the drum kit as if it's an extension of his body, attaching hits together like they are rolling waves. Zoh's gnarled sax notes grow into a melodic dance hidden within a amped up face ripper or a jam. This duo flows between moods on instinct, never flinching for a moment.

FARIDA AMADOU
Belgium self taught electric bassist Farida Amadou creates drone influenced landscapes where notes ripple under their own weight, either getting crushed by others or slowly dying out. Farida twists and mutates heavy bass tones into baths of distorted dust. Glitched soundscapes of angular chunks bounce against each other in a confined low frequency zone. Her compositions have an organic texture to them, meditative with an underlying punk energy. She has collaborated with the likes of Thurston Moore & Peter Brotzmann, along with many others in the European avant-garde scene.

WAYS
Saxophonist Brodie West (Eucalyptus) teams up with percussionist Evan Cartwright (Eucalyptus, Tasseomancy, Alex Lukashevsky, etc). In this thoughtful duo both West & Cartwright play with the rhythm, they pass notes back & forth in a playful yes cautious way. Their music is full of space, letting each note truly absorb into the air before veering from it. Saxophone phrases wander over sparse minimalist percussion. Like old friends playing an elongated game of chess their interactions are curt and full of intent. The bare minimum says the most.

TONE is made possible through the support of the Toronto Arts Council, the Canada Council for the Arts, Long & McQuade, and Burdock Brewery.