Guitarist and oud master Gordon Grdina releases two diverse yet equally stunning new albums via his Attaboygirl Records label on February 16, 2024
Gordon Grdina’s The Marrow with Fathieh Honari melds Persian and improvised music with Hank Roberts, Mark Helias and Hamin Honari, while Duo Work is an exhilarating improvisational meeting between Grdina and drummer Christian Lillinger
“Gordon Grdina is] a player of unbridled musical ingenuity.” – Raul da Gama, World Music Report
The JUNO award-winning, Vancouver-based guitarist, composer, improviser, and master oud player Gordon Grdina is a dauntless musical explorer whose interests run the gamut from free improvisation and progressive jazz to traditional Arabic music, often weaving deftly between those disparate extremes. The second of these releases, on his own Attaboygirl Records, focuses on completely opposite framework. The core here is the tight co-operation between two hyper talented individuals who are capable of create completely unique communication on the fly.
Duo Work is a wildly different project, electrifying and angular where The Marrow is trance-like and questing. The album continues the thrilling collaboration between Grdina and Lillinger, which has been documented via the quartet Square Peg (with violist Mat Maneri and bassist Shahzad Ismaily) and a trio with Maneri. Throughout Grdina is featured on guitar and MIDI guitar, a relatively new addition to his arsenal previously heard on Oddly Enough, a solo album featuring the compositions of Tim Berne. The instrument features synth pick-ups with MIDI controllers that allow Grdina to transform the sound of the guitar into virtually any instrument – existent or otherwise.
The axe makes for a perfect pairing with Lillinger’s expansive sound. “I wanted to fill a larger, orchestral space since Christian is quite an orchestral drummer,” Grdina explains. “I wanted to create a large sound world that could define many specific timbral spaces while retaining the freedom of an improvising duo that can turn on a dime.”
The album features four of Grdina’s compositions along with a set of improvised excursions. Each of the set’s concise pieces (most under four minutes) were isolated from longer free improvisations, chosen for their bold sense of structure and intentionality, and then manipulated in post-production in a final act of(re)composition. Grdina assigned song titles based on an impulsive sensory association. “Gerhard,” named for the artist Gerhard Richter, is a clue to the overall sound.
“His paintings feel so metallic, modern and bright, yet have this warmth and soothing feeling to them,” Grdina explains. “I wanted to stress the humanity that comes through these pieces that don’t seem very natural on the surface.”
With these two new additions to an increasingly audacious and vital catalogue, Grdina again reveals his wealth of interests, collaborative brilliance, and experimental instincts. There may seem little overlap between these two distinct and vividly conceptualized albums, but both spotlight a striking and vibrant voice in creative music beyond genre.
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Gordon Grdina
Gordon Grdina is a JUNO Award-winning oud/guitarist whose career has spanned continents, decades and constant genre exploration throughout avant-garde jazz, free-form improvisation, contemporary indie rock and Arabic. Grdina has performed and collaborated with a wide array of field-leading artists including Gary Peacock, Paul Motion, Marc Ribot, Mats Gustafsson, Mark Feldman, and Eyvind Kang. He currently leads multiple ensembles in Vancouver and New York, including the Gordon Grdina Quartet with Oscar Noriega, Russ Lossing, and Satoshi Takeishi; Square Peg with Christian Lillinger, Mat Maneri, and Shahzad Ismaily; Nomad Trio with Matt Mitchell and Jim Black; The Twain with Koichi Makigami, Michiyo Yagi and Tamaya Honda, and Haram, an Arabic/avant-garde ensemble that re-envisions the Arabic, Persian and Sudanese repertoire of the 50s and 60s from a modern improviser’s lens.
Gordon Grdina / Christian Lillinger – Duo Work
Attaboygirl Records – ABG-7
Release date February 16, 2024
gordongrdinamusic.com
gordongrdina.bandcamp.com
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