Sara Serpa 'Intimate Strangers' – Dec. 3 on Biophilia Records

Vocalist-composer Sara Serpa collaborates with Nigerian author Emmanuel Iduma on a stunning new album offering musical insight into the journeys and experiences of migrants, refugees, and displaced people

 

Intimate Strangers, due out December 3, 2021 via Biophilia Records, features vocalists Serpa, Aubrey Johnson and Sofía Rei with pianist Matt Mitchell and synth player Qasim Naqvi, creating vivid soundscapes for stories from Iduma’s book A Stranger’s Pose

"A fresh and riveting presence on the vocal-jazz landscape."

– Nate Chinen, JazzTimes

" Serpa possesses a preternatural cool, injecting weightless sophistication and melodic grace into everything she touches."

– Peter Margasak, Chicago Reader

 

Album release concert Tuesday, December 14 at National Jazz Museum, Harlem

There’s no better way to connect with the humanity of a stranger than to hear their stories and to share our own. On their poignant and striking new collaboration, Intimate Strangers, the extraordinary vocalist-composer Sara Serpa and the Nigerian writer Emmanuel Iduma traverse the African continent, sharing the author’s personal journey and collecting the tales of fellow travelers and migrants he meets along the way. Through Iduma’s insightful text and Serpa’s transcendent music, the lens widens to explore the struggles and emotions experienced by anyone who’s left their roots behind to seek the uncertain promise of a distant horizon.

 

Due out December 3, 2021 on Biophilia Records, Intimate Strangers draws from Iduma’s 2018 book A Stranger’s Pose, which recounts the writer’s travels through more than a dozen African cities, combining travelogue, memoir and meditations on migration and displacement. The album also continues a narrative that Serpa began with her 2020 release Recognition: Music For a Silent Film, which grappled with the legacy of Portuguese colonialism in Africa via her own family’s history. Intimate Strangers is, in a way, the mirror image of that project, gazing back at colonial powers from the vantage point of Africa itself.

“There were a lot of stories in Emmanuel’s book that really resonated with me,” Serpa explains. “While Recognition dealt with my country's past relationships with Africa, I felt like his book presents a much-needed perspective of what borders actually mean. Through his travels and encounters with so many people just trying to cross into Europe, Emmanuel raises all these questions about traveling, migrating and leaving your home behind.”

 

Commissioned by John Zorn, Intimate Strangers premiered at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust in November 2018 as a multi-media performance combining Serpa’s music, Iduma’s narration, and photographs  from the author’s book. In recorded form, Intimate Strangers remains evocative, conjuring mental images in the listener’s mind as vivid as that projected footage. It helps that Serpa gathered a stellar collection of musicians able to craft such bold imaginary landscapes: she is joined by fellow vocalists Sofía Rei and Aubrey Johnson (Rei is a bandmate from Zorn’s a cappella quartet Mycale; Johnson has been a collaborator since attending NEC with Serpa), along with pianist Matt Mitchell (Tim Berne, Dave Douglas) and modular synth player Qasim Naqvi (Dawn of Midi).

Iduma writes in the liner notes that, “My collaborative performance with Sara brought me closer to understanding how words worked in a pre-literate time, when writing was yet to be invented – when stories were passed from mouth to mouth, from memory to memory… Sara’s composition distills A Stranger’s Pose to its essential groove and vital ballad.”

 

“I am always inspired by Emmanuel’s insight and his writing,” adds Serpa. “We share a very deep mutual respect for each other's work. Of course, we come from different backgrounds, but we share the same concerns regarding humanity and hospitality. So we thought a lot about how to combine our art to convey this message and honor both our skillsets.”

photo by Da Pin Luo

The two were further bonded by shared grief, as both lost their fathers within a few months of each other. José Luis Serpa, who passed away just three days after the premiere of Intimate Strangers, provided the vibrant collage that graces the album’s cover art.

 

The album is itself a journey, beginning with Iduma’s self-reflections and continuing close to home with encounters in Nigeria. It soon ventures farther, over the Moroccan border and through the desert in Bamako, Mali. In the Senegalese town of Kidira the writer is reminded of his relatively privileged status when a passport means a world of difference between him and the unnamed stranger whose life briefly becomes linked to his own. The Morocco-based Cameroonian poet Onesiphore Nembe recites a piece in French, about things left behind – a mellifluous echo of past colonialism.

At journey’s end we cast our eyes back to its beginning. “For You I Must Become a Tree” poetically conveys the reflection of the migrant on the loves and home from which they’ve embarked, now far away but always heart-achingly close. “In the mind of the traveler, those who love you don't want you to go. So that person has to become a tree, which means having your roots in one place [with branches reaching far away].”

 

Serpa weaves a mesmerizing sonic tapestry from the sparse instrumentation and especially the stunning vocal harmonies, which serve at times as gorgeous atmosphere, at others as ethereal storytellers, still others as a lush Greek chorus. “The main character is always Emmanuel,” Serpa describes. “The singing voices are sometimes spirits, sometimes ghosts, sometimes witnesses and sometimes joining him as narrators.”

 

While Intimate Strangers tells Iduma’s story, and those he gathered along the road, it is no less personal a piece for Serpa. “As a migrant myself,” she says, “albeit a privileged migrant, I recognize the feeling of being a foreigner and a bit of an outsider. As a European and someone who has been following the news of the world’s various refugee crises, I feel that the book offers a human, crucial and urgent side to the stories that continuously happen at every border. That's what attracted me to it.”

1. First Song

2. Lokoja- Okenne

3. How Do You Know Where To Go?

4. Bamako

5. Lejam

6. The Poet (feat. Onesiphore Nembe)

7. God’s Time

8. Kidira

9. Le Bout Du Monde

10. Note to Nephew

11. In Due Course

12. Night

13. For You I Must Become a Tree

Sara Serpa – voice, composition

Emmanuel Iduma – text, spoken word

Sofía Rei - voice

Aubrey Johnson – voice

Matt Mitchell -piano

Qasim Naqvi – modular synth

PREORDER

Adam O'Farrill - Visions Of Your Other (November 12, 2021 Biophilia Records)

"Visions Of Your Other" is the third album by Adam O'Farrill's Stranger Days, one that takes the band back to its roots in original compositions after their Mexican folk music-inspired release, El Maquech. Adam and two of his bandmates, Walter Stinson on bass and Zack O'Farrill on drums, return along with the arrival of Xavier Del Castillo on tenor saxophone.

The album takes its title from a scene in Paul Thomas Anderson's post-WWII psychological portrait, "The Master", in which the main character, a veteran suffering PTSD, is interrogated about supposed visions he had of his mother.

In the vein of this theme of dueling realities, the album functions a study of conflict and contrast. The opening track, "stakra", takes Ryuichi Sakamoto's chromatic fantasy of the same name and extracts just a fragment of it, allowing the band to enter a deeper sonic meditation. Walter Stinson's "Kurosawa at Berghain" finds the meeting place between the rigidity of electronic house music and the spontaneity of acoustic, chord-less quartet. Adam wrote both "Inner War" and "Ducks" while staying and working at Morning Glory Farm in Bethel, ME in the summer of 2017, the former of which is a reflection of inner turmoil he felt when bringing chickens to be slaughtered. "Hopeful Heart" is a pseudo-lullaby inspired by the story of two lovers torn apart by circumstance, yet their uncertainty is lightly tinged with optimism. And the closing track, "Blackening Skies", was written from a climate change-induced anxiety, having experienced a scorching heatwave in NY within days of a summer monsoon in LA.

1. Stakra

2. Kurosawa At Berghain

3. Inner War

4. Ducks

5. Hopeful Heart

6. Blackening Skies

Adam O'Farrill: Trumpet

Xavier Del Castillo: Tenor Sax

Walter Stinson- bass

Zack O'Farrill- drums

Visual artist: Janelle Jones

Liner notes: Kevin Sun 

PREORDER

Justin Brown - Nyeusi (BIOPHILIA RECORDS 2018)

After years as an essential member of groups led by Ambrose Akinmusire, Thundercat, and Flying Lotus, – he’s also been tapped to round out the sound for Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Bilal, Vijay Iyer, and many others – Brown is finally ready to extend his reach beyond the drumset to lead his own band, NYEUSI. 

Rounding out NYEUSI are Jason Lindner and Fabian Almazan on keyboards, Burniss Earl Travis on bass, and Mark Shim on electronic wind controller. Brown on drums is the engine propelling an intoxicating synthesis of varying influences that offers deep groove and charged improvisations. “I cannot think of a more highly anticipated debut by an artist right now that is also a lynchpin in today’s creative music scene,” says WBGO’s Simon Rentner.

1. Jupiter's Giant Red Spot 01:48

2. Lesson 1: DANCE 02:31

3. Lots for Nothin' 04:00

4. Waiting (DUSK) 01:18

5. Waiting on Aubade 06:23

6. At Peace (DAWN) 01:02

7. Lesson 2: PLAY 02:27

8. Entering Purgatory 05:18

9. Replenish 02:44

10. FYFO 03:31

11. Circa 45 06:07

12. Burniss 00:32

13. Lindner's in your Body! 02:37

Justin Brown | Drums, Fender Rhodes, Synths, Yamaha DX7

Mark Shim | Wind Controller

Jason Lindner | Moog Synth, Prophet, Mopho, Schoenhut Piano

Fabian Almazan | Fender Rhodes, Mopho, Wurlitzer, Laptop

Burniss Travis | Bass

Brooklyn Recording Studio: June 24 and 25, 2015

Engineer: Andy Taub

Assistant Engineer: Adam Tilzer

Electric Indigo Studios August 15, 2017

Engineer: Jesse Fischer

Assistant Engineer: Morgan Guerin

Mixing: Andy Taub | Tracks 1-8 & 11-13

Mixing: Jess Fischer | Tracks 9-10

Mastering: Colin Girod

Artwork: Roland Nicol

Layout: Aestheticize MediaJustin Brown

Adam O'Farrill - El Maquech (BIOPHILIA RECORDS June 1, 2018)

Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill pivots away from his family’s musical legacy toward dazzling postbop sounds

Trumpeter Adam O’Farrill is just 23, but there’s already plenty of weight attached to his name. His father is the acclaimed, innovative Latin jazz bandleader and pianist Arturo O’Farrill, and his grandfather was the great Afro-Cuban bandleader Chico.

He began to forge his own path early on in his career, making waves playing alongside saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa on the latter’s 2015 album Bird Calls (ACT) and establishing himself as an improviser of protean strength and melodic clarity.

On his debut as a bandleader, 2016’s Stranger Days (Sunnyside), Adam eschews any connection to the lineage carved out by his forebears, pursuing a limber but sharply articulated strain of free bop that sparkles with erudition, soul, and precision.

Leading a quartet with tenor saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, bassist Walter Stinson, and his older brother Zach O’Farrill on drums, Adam proffers a vanguard postbop sound with rhythmic, elastic structures and harmonic thickets that support his sneaky, snaking melodies. A year ago I saw the group play a fiery but measured set in New York, and that performance, along with the group’s forthcoming second full-length, El Maquech (due in June from Biophilia), has completely convinced me that his band is the real deal. The album, which was recorded in the midst of a tour, captures the band playing with serious heat and interactive brio. This time out Adam explicitly draws upon nonjazz sources, opening with a thrilling adaptation of a northern Mexican folk tune called “Siiva Moiiva” and ending with a smoldering rendition of “Pour Maman,” an electro-soul song by New York singer-songwriter Gabriel Gárzon-Montano. While it’s early in 2018, I haven’t heard a better jazz record yet this year. 

By Peter Margasak / www.chicagoreader.com

Adam O’Farrill, trumpet

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown, tenor sax

Walter Stinson, bass

Zach O’Farrill, drums

Maria Grand - Magdalena (BIOPHILIA RECORDS May 1, 2018)

Following up her 2017 debut EP Tetrawind (“kinetic and abstract … intuitive and confident,” jazzweekly.com), tenor saxophonist, composer and vocalistMaría Grand returns with her full-length debut Magdalena from the innovative Biophilia Records. Her guiding intent is to explore modern family relationships through the lens of Egyptian and early Christian myths, connecting them to the pioneering work of family therapist Virginia Satir. Proceeding from the conviction that “healing families heals humanity,” Grand conceives a set of music within “a feminine non-hierarchical power structure,” she explains. “This means that the traditional form of solos is exploded into a more collective conversation.”

In the mercurial, asymmetric rhythms and flowing dialogue of Grand and her core trio with bassist Rashaan Carter and drummer Jeremy Dutton, we hear the musical analogue of two parents and a child. This trio dynamic is manifest most clearly on “TI. Isis,” “TII. María” and “TIII. Magdalena,” each constructed around a particular triad and inspired by three mythical women who serve “as examples of a woman’s power,” Grand says. These pieces also contain layers of symbolism: on “TI. Isis,” as Grand states in the liner notes, “The melody has every note that exists in a chromatic scale except for one, the piece that Isis didn’t find after Osiris died.”

The guests appearing on Magdalena serve to vary the sound and the relational dynamic, “providing more complex domestic structures to the music,” Grand offers. Pianist David Bryant, who played a brilliant role on Tetrawind, lends bracing and mysterious harmonic aspects to five tracks. On the duet piece “Imani/Walk by,” inspired by vocalist and composer Imani Uzuri, we hear from pianist and Biophilia founder/director Fabian Almazan, who interprets the song with gradually increasing adventurism. We also hear Grand stepping away from the saxophone to sing. “I’ve always written songs with lyrics,” she says, “and I don’t see that as fundamentally different from the instrumental music. For me it’s about balance: it’s a more vulnerable and fragile part of my expression.”

Grand’s cool legato voice surfaces again on two duets with acclaimed guitarist Mary Halvorson, playing acoustic with otherworldly effects (“I don’t know her secrets,” Grand says with a laugh). The two met while teaching at Karl Berger’s Creative Music Studio and formed a close friendship. “She came in and did exactly what I love,” Grand enthuses. “I love the tones that she got. She’s a great accompanist, she doesn’t overplay. The harmony was specific because there’s all these weird clashes that I wanted, and in Mary’s choice of voicings she found ways to highlight those clashes.”

Grand’s compositional methods tend to mirror the often very personal meanings of the songs themselves. “Workshop,” with its heightened tension and release, is the most directly inspired by Virginia Satir’s model of the family therapy workshop or “family constellation.” In this experience, Grand explains in the notes, “tension builds when people release deep trauma into the world. The pain that was hidden makes its way to the surface and is finally recognized.”

“Where Is E,” a reflection on Grand’s estranged sister Eleanora, is more personal still: “In the intro the piano and saxophone are together, and then eventually they separate. The whole thing is about looking for her, so we go through every triad and see if we can find her. It’s kind of like going through the whole phone book. I wrote the song hoping it would move the energy so that then I would actually meet her.”

“La Inmortal” and “Ejes y deseos” serve as a narrated opening and closing statements, the former with the poetic recitation of vocalist Jasmine Wilson, the latter with the rap vocal of Amani Fela. Grand wrote the words herself but wanted to incorporate other voices to bring them to life. “I recited a poem on Tetrawind,” Grand recalls, “but on ‘La Inmortal’ I wanted someone with unaccented English, and it was important to me to have another woman on the album. On the closing track, which is in 11, Amani got it right away. If he hears a rhythm he understands what it is. He sang on my 2017 Jazz Gallery commission ‘Embracements’ and was just incredible.”

Born in Switzerland in 1992 to a Swiss mother and Argentinian father, Grand moved to New York in 2011 and became a mentee of greats such as Billy Harper, Antoine Roney, Von Freeman, Doug Hammond and Steve Coleman. She has appeared on Coleman’s Synovial Joints and Morphogenesis, worked extensively with such colleagues as Rajna Swaminathan and Roman Filiu, and grown increasingly active as an educator. Incorporating aspects of dance and performance art into her recent work, Grand seeks to explore modern mythical stories in fresh and compelling ways, as she states in her liner notes: “A revamped mythology to fit us, to fit who we are today, to connect the ancient and the future as expressed in the present moment.”

Magdalena will be released by Biophilia Records as a Biopholio™, a double-sided, 20-panel origami-inspired medium bursting with vibrant artwork and liner notes; each one made entirely out of FSC-certified, robust paper, hand-folded and printed using plant-based inks. In each Biopholio™ is a unique code to digitally download the music in the preferred format. This innovative design caters to the environmentally conscious listener, who is aware of the harmful effects of plastic in the environment, yet feels that a digital download is just not enough. Biophilia’s artists are united by a common interest in having a positive impact on the environment and our communities. To that end, they collaborate with organizations that specialize in conservation, sustainability and outreach initiatives.

"On “TetraWind,” an EP released this year, Ms. Grand, 25, unfurls a teetering logic. She conjoins the spiky rhythms of Rashaan Carter’s bass with tilting sheets of harmony, built by her tenor saxophone, David Bryant’s keyboard and Roman Filiu’s alto saxophone. As an improviser, the Swiss-Argentine Ms. Grand is both measured and frank, often venturing into gentle provocation."

-The New York Times, Giovanni Russonello

​"..a dynamic, Colemanesque solo from saxophonist María Grand.."

-the Chicago Tribune, Howard Reich

"[María Grand] is an excellent, exploratory saxophonist you should all know. I first encountered her at a Steve Coleman and the Five Elements show in NYC last year. As you're aware, that is not exactly an easy gig to get. She contributes to Steve's 'Synovial Joints' album, if you want to hear her in that context. [...] Grand's pieces are full of wild twists, turns and time signatures, yet hang together in a compelling way. This is stuff for adventurous listeners. There's excellent interplay between Grand and alto saxophonist Román Filiú.

-Anil Prasad, found of innerviews.org

www.mariakimgrand.com

Fabian Almazan & Rhizome - Alcanza (BIOPHILIA RECORDS 2017)

“Alcanza (Spanish for “reach”) is a nine movement suite of music that deals with those brief moments in our lives in which within a blink of an eye, everything changes- or at least gives us a remarkable new perception of our condition. It also deals with the process of finding our own path as we go from childhood into adulthood; reflecting the beauty, frustrations and paradoxes of modern-day life and not giving up on reaching for everything in life that brings us joy and love.” -Fabian Almazan 

“Alcanza” by Fabian Almazan has been made possible with support from Chamber Music America’s 2014 New Jazz Works: Commissioning and Ensemble Development program funded through the generosity of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. 

“Alcanza es una pieza de nueve movimientos que se enfoca en esos breves momentos de nuestras vidas en los cuales una fracción de un segundo lo cambia todo - o al menos nos da una percepción nueva sobre nuestra condición en este mundo. También trata sobre el proceso de encontrar nuestro propio camino a medida que pasamos de la infancia a la adultez… reflejando la belleza, frustraciones y paradojas de la vida moderna y no renunciar a alcanzar todo en la vida que nos trae alegría y amor.“ -Fabian Almazan

Linda May Han Oh - Walk Against Wind (BIOPHILIA RECORDS 2017)

The art of mime, with its embrace of silence and pure physical expression, may seem like an unlikely source of inspiration for a jazz musician. But in “Walking Against the Wind,” one of Marcel Marceau’s best-loved pieces, bassist/composer Linda Oh found a stunning metaphor for the life of an artist. Marceau’s graceful but frustrated motion, which also inspired Michael Jackson’s iconic moonwalk, found the legendary mime fighting against invisible but pervasive forces while also embracing the beauty and pleasure to be found in taking the paths in life that offer greater challenges but also richer rewards. 

On her fourth album, Walk Against Wind, Oh explores both the challenges and the rich rewards of an artist’s journey. “Walk Against Wind is about the paths that we choose,” Oh explains. “Sometimes they end up being the harder paths, but in the long run they prove more fruitful.” 

The album is the spiritual successor to Oh’s acclaimed 2013 release Sun Pictures, with returning saxophonist Ben Wendel joined by guitarist Matthew Stevens drummer Justin Brown. 

In addition, pianist/keyboardist Fabian Almazan and Korean traditional musician Minji Park appear as special guests with the quartet, which has been workshopping Oh’s compositions at a variety of New York hotspots including the 55 Bar, the Jazz Gallery and Minton’s Harlem. - Shaun Brady

1. Lucid Lullaby 07:48

2. Firedancer 03:44

3. Speech Impediment 06:57

4. Perpluzzle 03:55

5. Walk Against Wind 07:28

6. Ikan Bilis 06:51

7. Mother Reason 04:16

8. Mantis 04:54

9. Deepsea Dancers 06:38

10. Midnight 06:42

11. Western 04:15

Linda Oh - acoustic bass 

Ben Wendel - tenor saxophone 

Matthew Stevens - guitar 

Justin Brown - drums 

Fabian Almazan - piano (tracks 2, 6, 10) 

Minji Park - janggu & kkwaenggwari (track 8) 

Recorded at Brooklyn Recording 

on March 1 & 2, 2016 

Engineered by Tyler MacDiarmid & Andy Taub 

Mixed and Mastered by David Darlington at Bass Hit Studios