snobb
Rova's sax player Larry Ochs new project's debut album isn't music for cocktail party. Nothing strange, Rova for decades were noisy,often provocative collective of heavy experimenting musicians. But this project is even more provocative and shocking (for unprepared listener).
The source of most controversial sound this time is Korean composer, vocalist, and dancer Ms.Dohee Lee. Her vocals is based on Korean p’ansori singing and of Korean sinawi improvisation and sound quite unusual for listener who wasn't familiar with similar techniques before. I am a long time fan of very interesting Tuvian singer Sainkho Namchilak (often known around Europe as just Sainkho or by her Austrian-based band Nomad), she started to use similar Tuvian and Mongol Buddhist vocalise's techniques still in 80s,combining them with avant-garde jazz, pop-music and even hip-hop.So I listened Kihnoua debut album with special interest.
"Kihnoua" means “the difference” on ancient Greek's language, and this project is really different almost from everything you could hear before. For sure "different" doesn't always mean "better", and this album is a great illustration, when "different" just mean really different. You will hear there Western improvisational music melted with South-Eastern Asian trad music with contribution of such great musicians as Scott Amendola (drums/electronics) and Fred Frith (as guest guitarist on one track) beside of already mentioned Larry Ochs.I expect you will like this music or will hate it, but for me it's a great when the music you listen can't be passed unnoticed: it's better to hate some music than use faceless sound wallpapers for dinner room audio design.
I still believe open-ears (and open-mind) listener will like this album rather than hate it.