Stephen Malkmus - The Oblique Daydreams of an Eternal Boy

A pair of handcuffs dangles ominously from the microphone stand. The young man stares at them with a bitter smile on his lips, pointing at them provocatively for the audience. “This is what it feels like to be in this band.”

Cut.

A postcard-perfect sunset tints the clouds pink in the tropical sky. The young man's gaze drifts to the horizon, where the dreams still to be written seem to matter more than the ghosts of the past.

Fade out.

Between these two scenes lies the breakup of one of the most influential indie-rock bands of the Nineties: Pavement. An adventure that could only end under the unmistakable sign of Stephen Malkmus's sarcastic streak, handcuffs included. What had started as a pastime for a group of college kids, in defiance of the then-dominant grunge nihilism, had ended up becoming something that threatened to crush them: “It was like being a hamster on a wheel,” he recalls. The fun had stopped being fun, and the slide into formula had inexorably begun.

So, at the end of what would become Pavement's final tour, the young man who, together with Scott Kannberg, had given life to the band that symbolized American lo-fi, decided to pull the plug and headed off to Hawaii, leaving behind the tensions and friction of a road that had reached its end. On his return, Malkmus was ready to throw himself into a new challenge: a journey that was solitary, but not entirely so, accompanied by what would, over time, become much more than a mere backing band: the Jicks. Determined to prove to everyone that he had no intention of being labelled just an “ex”.

The story of Malkmus's solo career, in the end, is the story of how it's possible to face the inevitable reckoning with maturity without having to give up the youthful spark at the heart of it.

Stephen Malkmus has crossed the fateful threshold of forty, gotten married, become a father: yet he still seems to be the same eternal teenager, laid-back and jokey, with a smile on his lips and a melancholy shadow in his eyes. Sure, he's no longer the guy who'd go to the barber's dressed as a gorilla with his friends, as in the video for “Cut Your Hair”, but his urge to play around is still the same. The day someone like him decides to finally settle down for good and set aside his old jester's antics, his music will end up losing that crooked charm that keeps making it so unmistakable.

“I’m not what you think I am”

Just over a year has passed since the last Pavement show, when the first, much-anticipated solo album by Stephen Malkmus hits record store shelves. Backing him up are two musicians from the Portland scene, where Malkmus had relocated some time before: Joanna Bolme on bass and John Moen on drums, who together with him make up the Jicks. And it's actually the Jicks, in Malkmus's original intentions, who should have had their name on the new record, provisionally titled “Swedish Reggae”. But the label, obviously eager to milk the Pavement afterglow for all it's worth, insists that Malkmus's name appear in bold letters on the cover.

Malkmus picks up the thread right where Pavement left it, only making the approach more direct and spontaneous. “Black Book” and “Discretion Grove”, with their dark-vibrating guitars, seem to pick up straight from the sound of “Terror Twilight”, as does the dreamy drape of “Trojan Curfew”, originally written for his old band. But the claim that the Jicks are ultimately just “Pavement with a new rhythm section” is nothing more than a poisonous Malkmus quip meant to belittle the role of his former bandmates: in reality, Pavement's crooked detours give way to a lightness that isn't afraid to call itself pop, as sparkling and lively as a mix of Soft Boys and Television.

So, the breezy, playful air of “Phantasies” pushes through, amid skipping guitars, little yelps and handclaps, before making way for the irresistible Lou Reed-like stride of “The Hook” and “Jenny & The Ess-Dog”. Malkmus's songwriting also becomes less cryptic, though never giving up its own wild visionary streak, moving between waking up among huskies in Alaska, Greek gods toasting to the Trojan war, and kidnappings aboard Turkish pirate galleons.

Then, when Malkmus dons the surreal mask of Yul Brynner on “Jo Jo's Jacket”, the sense of estrangement reaches its peak: over a lopsided piano intro, the famous star of “The Magnificent Seven” explains how shaving his head was, for him, a kind of liberation, and his words come off as a paradoxical metaphor for the new solo path Malkmus has taken. Then the guitars take over with their ever-ready-to-smirk liveliness, in a whirl of references drawn from Brynner's filmography (an ironic honorable mention for the sci-fi b-movie “Westworld”), building to a chaotic finale in which Malkmus mumbles in the background the lines of the Dylan-esque “It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)”.

Malkmus is once again in the mood to have fun without needing to impress at all costs, and when he tells the story of Jenny and her boyfriend who plays in a Sixties cover band, his drive comes about as close to an anthem as can be expected from an incurable slacker like him.

From the fizz of “Troubbble” to the soft acoustic textures of “Pink India”, passing through the hazy organ of “Vague Space” and the romantic glide of “Church On White”, Malkmus's solo debut reveals the most direct side of his personality. And it's a wonderful discovery, confirmed the following year by the brilliant cover of the Verlaines' “Death And The Maiden” recorded for the compilation “Under The Influence – 21 Years Of Flying Nun Records”.

“A bit like The Zephyr and a bit like The Jicks”

The experience gained on stage after the release of his debut solo album further cements the chemistry between Malkmus and his band, deeply shaping the writing of the new songs. Malkmus moves with the group for a month into a house near a recording studio in the woods of Washington state, and there he hammers out the material for his second album in a jam-session atmosphere.

Pig Lib, which hits stores in March 2003, is thus billed from the very credits as a work by “Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks”. Keyboardist Mike Clark is also given full credit in the lineup, and his contribution strongly shapes the sound of an album that comes across more as the product of collective work than an individual effort.

The result, however, is anything but exciting: the convoluted noodling of the opening “Water And A Seat” already bodes nothing good, and the feeling is confirmed by the dead-end mazes of “1% Of One” and “Witch Mountain Bridge”, which drag on long-winded and bland, with Malkmus in the mood for guitar-hero posturing.

Pig Lib never manages to shake off a dull, murky overall feel, which the “Wowee Zowee”-style shards of “(Do Not Feed The) Oyster” aren't enough to make up for. Luckily, Malkmus proves he hasn't lost his self-deprecating humor, imagining in “1% Of One” that the song's ravings are nothing but the dream of a sound engineer who's fallen asleep at the mixing desk…

The sunniness of the previous record fades into an autumnal mood, starting with the melancholy tones of “Ramp Of Death” and leading up to a “Dark Wave” that, just as its title suggests, plays at chasing sounds descended from the Cure. Even the closing “Us”, whose soft tones seem to drift further than any other track from Malkmus's classic songwriting, never quite takes off.

The best moments then come from the pastel-colored grace of “Vanessa From Queens”, in perfect contrast with its references to politicians caught up in sex scandals, and from the mottled keyboards of “Animal Midnight”, which, with its supple, cheeky gait, could well appeal to fans of Blur. But overall, Pig Lib remains stuck in a mediocrity that never manages to rise above passable.

“Done is good, but done well is so much fucking better”

When Malkmus resurfaces, in May 2005, his favorite toy no longer seems to be the six-string, but rather the synth and a variety of other electronic gadgets. Right from the opening of the new record, titled Face The Truth, the grimy guitars and goofy little choruses of “Pencil Rot” get infected by an outbreak of arcade-game keyboard bleeps. And any doubt about Malkmus's intentions is swept away by the Beck-like disco extravagance of “Kindling For The Master”, as exuberant as a Daft Punk raid into the territory of “Midnight Vultures”.

It's no coincidence that the Jicks are given a much more marginal role this time around, to the point that their name only appears on the back of the record: most of the new songs, Malkmus explains, were born during solitary nights spent in his basement, tinkering with a sound that leaned less on guitars than in the past.

But things really work only when Malkmus doesn't worry too much about forcing himself to come up with something surprising, since the synthetic diversions of Face The Truth don't actually trigger the kind of amazement one might expect. Rather, it's the delicate piano-and-guitar interplay of "Freeze The Saints", with its nostalgic lyrics, that puts itself forward for the list of Malkmus's finest ballads: “Seasons change/ Nothing last for long/ Except the earth and mountains/ So learn to sing along and languish here”.

In short, Malkmus isn't chasing the mirage of seasons long gone, but nor does he disown his illustrious past. To really enjoy Face The Truth, though, it's best to steer clear of the exhausting Pig Lib-style guitar workout of "No More Shoes", which after eight minutes of mannerism becomes so hard to swallow that it forces Malkmus himself to cry out "I want my Alka-Seltzer!"...

Better, then, to have some carefree fun with the scruffy rock of "Baby C'mon", so breezy it becomes irresistible, or with the tango gait of "I've Hardly Been", complete with its usual trimmings of falsetto and electric outbursts. In the end, it's the restless farewell of "Malediction" ("The road to rejection is better than no road at all") that settles things down, with Malkmus dressing a bitter ballad in Moog wails and theatrical strings.

Also in 2005, Malkmus once again teams up with David Berman under the Silver Jews banner, as he had already done in the Nineties for "Starlite Walker" and "American Water". And it's precisely Malkmus's guitar touch that unmistakably shapes the musical dress of Berman's comeback. "Tanglewood Numbers" heads unhesitatingly toward an electric singer-songwriter sound built on sharp, essential chords, but by focusing on its own rock backbone, the Silver Jews' sound ends up feeling more uniform and less nuanced than in the past.

"All my stoned digressions"

Could you picture someone like Stephen Malkmus in the shoes of the amphetamine-fuelled Dylan of the electric turn? That tantalizing opportunity arrives in 2007 with the soundtrack to Todd Haynes's film "I'm Not There", in which it's Malkmus himself who lends his voice to Cate Blanchett's androgynous portrayal, singing "Ballad Of A Thin Man" and "Maggie's Farm" alongside the Million Dollar Bashers, a sort of supergroup assembled for the occasion featuring, among others, Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth, Nels Cline of Wilco, and former Television guitarist Tom Verlaine.

When he gets back to playing with his trusty Jicks, though, the thrill of freedom seems to get the better of Malkmus a little too easily. On his fourth solo album, Real Emotional Trash, released in early 2008 and credited jointly to his backing band as Pig Lib, the urge to surrender to music's unruly flow is pushed even further by the arrival in the band's ranks of a heavyweight like Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. As a result, Real Emotional Trash loses its bearings on more than one occasion, getting tangled up in long, overly self-indulgent and frayed digressions: only a handful of moments worthy of Malkmus's oblique, playful songwriting manage to save it in the clutch, without quite erasing the sense that this is one of the weaker chapters of the post-Pavement era.

"Dragonfly Pie" opens with a hearty serving of saturated guitars burning with Hendrix-like fire, and the sour digressions and psychedelic special effects kick in almost immediately. "Hopscotch Willie" is built on an acoustic dance-like architecture, but quickly veers off into a spiral of self-involved musings that twist back on themselves, giving the impression of not quite knowing where it's headed.

Thankfully, the tally of Real Emotional Trash is redeemed by the tasty Grandaddy-style keyboards of "Cold Son", whose plastic motion and easygoing melody come closer than ever to the mood of Face The Truth. And it's Malkmus at his best who borrows the breezy lightness of late-period Belle & Sebastian for "Gardenia", and delivers the inevitable Pavement-esque scraps of "Out Of Reaches": once again, it's when he fiddles with pop music without too many qualms that solo Malkmus hits the mark of not making us dwell too much on days gone by.

Amid tales of family curses written into the DNA and assorted oddities where "Wanda" cheerfully rhymes with "Rwanda", the most sincere confession of all turns out to be in the opening lines of "Dragonfly Pie": "Of all my stoned digressions/ Some have mutated into truth".

This time the scales tip toward the stoned digressions: for the moment of truth, it's better to wait hopefully for the next round. Until the day Malkmus (should he ever feel like it...) finally decides to gift us his masterpiece.

“The distortion is way too clear”

In the Nineties it would have been an impossible dream: Stephen Malkmus and Beck together. Twenty years later, a pairing like this risks being dismissed as a mere reunion of old-timers. That would be a mistake, though, because despite the inevitable arcs of time, this is a partnership that's anything but nostalgic. After touring again with Pavement in 2010, Malkmus seems to rediscover the sense of proportion that Real Emotional Trash lacked. As for Mr. Beck Hansen, his role as producer brings him plenty of satisfaction, from his work with Charlotte Gainsbourg to his work with Thurston Moore. In the summer of 2011, Mirror Traffic thus unveils a polished, gleaming sound that recalls the one Nigel Godrich crafted for "Terror Twilight", in service of a set of songs that are more compact and less guitar-driven, even if not always fully focused.

The sparkling flavor of "Tigers" sets things in motion with its playful flourishes, while the opening of "Senator" strikes with the energy of better days. Beck's touch is always careful not to distort the spirit of the former Pavement man's music, although the elegant piano-and-guitar textures of "No One (Is As I Are Be)", which evoke echoes of Bobbie Gentry's classic "Ode To Billy Joe", wouldn't have been out of place among the tracks of "Sea Change".

Between the garage-rock grit of "Tune Grief"'s boogie and the carefree riffs of "Stick Figures In Love", Malkmus manages to keep his digressions in check: "I wanted it to be more concise. More like the Bin Laden raid – in and out quickly with a Black Hawk helicopter. That was the feeling." The Jicks, by now a tightly-knit backing band, see Janet Weiss on drums for the last time in their ranks, as she decides to devote herself full-time to Almost and Wild Flag. Malkmus doesn't spare her a parting jab, accusing her of having played on the album in the spirit of a mere session drummer...

Having dropped the title originally suggested by his friend David Berman of the Silver Jews (“L.A. Guns”) to avoid any risk of legal trouble with the Californian hard rock band of the same name, “Mirror Traffic” strings together an unusually crowded tracklist by Malkmus's standards, though no small number of moments end up getting lost in the shuffle. Malkmus, about to relocate to Berlin with his wife and kids, seems to want to open up in a more intimate and personal tone, trying to seize the moment with the lightness of “Forever 28”. The important thing, as “Asking Price” suggests, is to always be ready to grab the chances that each day is capable of offering: “Many opportunities come rolling off your lap / I’m not gonna bait that trap again”. And this time, the opportunity was a good one. Malkmus as a solo artist, though, remains forever a work in progress

“Can’s Ege Bamyasi Played By Stephen Malkmus And Friends”

What could Stephen Malkmus and Can possibly have in common, besides the Santa Monica artist's passion for the Germans? The chance to make this fondness manifest and pay tribute to them arrives with the fortieth anniversary of their fourth full-length, “Ege Bamyasi”, released in late 1972. Stephen Malkmus took part in the Week-End Fest (Record Store Day) held from November 30 to December 2, 2012 in Cologne (Can's hometown). Alongside him were other notable names such as Scritti Politti, Deerhoof and Die Goldenen Zitronen. During the event he was backed by Von Spar, a third-millennium kraut-rock band tasked with the none-too-easy job of bridging the music of Michael Karoli's band with SM's indie sensibility.

The album “Ege Bamyasi” is performed from first track to last, from “Pinch” to “Spoon”, though in a different running order, keeping intact the cosmic atmospheres of the original while stripping away its experimental excesses and giving it a more current, modern, immediate feel without tipping over into demystifying the cult object. However, none of the variations introduced by Malkmus and his backing band carry any artistic value as a subjective reinterpretation of the work. Since this is a “gesture” meant to celebrate a myth on its fortieth birthday, they tread carefully and don't stray too far from the original — partly out of caution, perhaps out of fear of an audience that, for the reasons mentioned above, is clearly very attached to this fellow-townsmen band, but also because the performer himself, having such a close bond with the work, likely didn't feel the need to alter its structure enough to turn it into something new.

“I’m just busy being free”

Janet Weiss packed her bags to devote herself body and soul to old (Almost) and new (Wild Flag) projects, only to drop the latter after realizing it was perhaps time to bring Sleater-Kinney out of the freezer. Finding a replacement drummer wasn't a huge problem, in any case. Then it was SM's turn to leave Portland and move his whole family to Berlin, just to discover his own messy love for Germany, pour himself into the heartfelt yet off-the-cuff tribute to Can, record in the Ardennes the album that (only numerically) outdoes his old band, Wig Out at Jagbags, and return to Oregon less than two years later.

Produced by trusted sound engineer Remko Schouten and animated in its genesis (as one can well imagine) by surging emotional jolts, the album — let's be clear from the outset — doesn't shift the established verdict on the Californian singer-songwriter one bit. Still, it entertains and delights with just the right touch, starting with its buoyant introduction, as crooked and light as a featherweight. Malkmus opts for a plain, lean setup, with lively but far from overwrought guitars, making “Planetary Motion” a remarkably faithful postcard of the whole record — breezy but without lapsing into the kind of slovenly slacker posturing that today would risk sounding downright forced. Songs like this one, or the following “The Janitor Revealed”, with their serene, sly disposition, remain a reliably pleasant treat for longtime fans, even if in their disciplined calm there's nothing (nor is there meant to be) especially overwhelming. Catching strong echoes of the artist's important past, especially albums like “Brighten The Corners” and “Terror Twilight”, is almost unavoidable, even though such comparisons, in his case, never really lead anywhere. Stephen doesn't hide his carefree streak but manages to avoid ugly caricatures of the Pavement gospel. When he dares to replicate the euphoria of the poppier moments of “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain”, he ends up sounding like a (likeable) parody of Weezer or the Ben Folds Five of that era, as filtered through the early Shins (“Rumble at The Rainbo”), while elsewhere he pays heavy dues to the attitude of his glory days, sly and sing-song yet capable of biting when needed (“Scattegories”, the most Pavement-like track of the bunch). The playful, offbeat streak that's always run through his work resurfaces in “Cinnamon And Lesbians”, which to some might surprisingly recall “The King Of Summer” by Hefner, but an equally curious connection finds him striking a brooding, à la Alasdair Roberts pose (“Surreal Teenagers”), in a finale that doesn't skip a few choice gusts of psych/progressive flavor, giving rise to a bizarre but spirited hybrid.

The new Malkmus has the consistency of slightly sparkling mineral water. It refreshes and satisfies, for a few fleeting moments, whoever approaches it without great expectations: like running into a friend from your youth, charmingly wayward back then, now genial and even-keeled, yet with his playful spirit still intact. Made here and there a bit more knowing by the warmth of the horns, he endears himself above all for how freely he still lets his electric guitars roam and misbehave: the illusion that time has frozen, as in the wildest of flash mobs, becomes tangible then, both unsettling and comforting at once. Slightly livelier moments like “Houston Hades” come across equally pleasant and harmless, flowing like nursery rhymes lit up by SM's good-natured wit, and the same goes for the somewhat more nervy tracks. They don't disown the aesthetic of the '90s nor certain inescapable clichés of early American indie-rock, but neither do they bow to them passively or opportunistically. Granting that the record follows a formula free of real surprises, the second side still proves more appealing thanks to a few precious variations on the theme. Playing the languid, seasoned seducer, on “Indipendence Street” Stephen dons just a veil of adorable melancholy, with the Jazzmaster cunningly clinging to the allure of a gorgeous, shaded filigree, while the piano plays backup without ever forcing the issue. “J. Smoov”, on the other hand, is a track that uses rapturous contemplation as an ideal emotional lockpick, easily dismantling the listener's defenses: formally flawless, shrewd in resurrecting certain Godrich-esque fascinations from Beck's Sea Change as much as in its magical, skyward ascent at the close, it walks away with the award for best title on the record while also sketching an imaginary bridge connecting to Mirror Traffic.

Fewer hazy displays of virtuosity than on Pig Lib, fewer aimless wanderings than on Real Emotional Trash, fewer eccentricities than on Face The Truth. Judged with the proper indulgence, and without dwelling on impossible comparisons to the past, Wig Out at Jagbags can prove to be more than a pleasant diversion. Perhaps those who claim Malkmus hasn't had much that's truly sensational to say for a while now have a point. Yet there's no doubt he deserves to be appreciated as an artist for the consistency he's shown in every project he's taken on, for that nature of his as an honest free agent, today as in the past unbound by any formula he's never felt at home in. “I don’t have the stomach for your brandy, I can hardly sip your tea, I don’t have the teeth left for your candy, I’m just busy being free” he sings in the opening verse of “Indipendence Street”, which couldn't be a more eloquent statement of intent, and is also the one address where you can always be sure to find him.

Four years later, in the spring of 2018, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks returned with a new album of original material: Spakle Hard. The record gathers perfectly written, masterfully arranged indie pop-rock songs echoing both past and present: the allure of psychedelia, the love of melody, and the wonder of the unexpected run through near-flawless tracks like “Solid Silk” – probably the album's masterpiece – in which Malkmus's compositional craft reaches its purest essence. His unmistakable way with words steeps a bittersweet melody sung at the pace of a lullaby, while between verses an instrumental refrain opens up, enriched by strings and 70s-style synths. 

The album is beautifully balanced, cohesive and tight. The tracklist is varied and flows smoothly from one style to another, offering gentler, more reflective songs (the opening “Cast Off”), more dynamic, lively pieces (“Bike Lane” and “Shiggy”), or songs that on their own sum up everything written so far (“Kite”). Standing out is the duet between Malkmus and Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth, Body/Head), notable less for the song's refinement than for its (self-)irony. 

The epiphany one experiences listening to it recalls the mix of enthusiasm and quiet surrender felt with “Fade” by Yo La Tengo (Matador, 2013), while the sweetness of the sounds and the gentle cadence of the string arrangements bring to mind the solo album of an indie-rock veteran, the splendid “Electric Cables” (Domino, 2012) by Gerard Love of Teenage Fanclub with his Lightships project. It all flows, passes, transforms and rewinds. The phrasings chase one another, trailing the strings which are then replaced by electric guitars, kick drum and snare, in a listen that loops on itself, one you could stay suspended in for hours. We'd like to sing along at the top of our lungs, and find ourselves, the moment the door closes, on the way to a show.

The electronic album: Groove Denied

On March 15, 2019, Stephen Malkmus surprise-released — though not entirely unexpectedly — his own personal electronic album. Groove Denied perhaps arrives at just the right moment, that is, right after “Sparkle Hard”, the record with which the American artist seemed to be giving a more straightforward shape to his modus operandi. As if to reaffirm that the composed aesthetic of the previous album was a stage along the way, not a final destination. And speaking of this artistic journey, it's tempting to think that Stephen's time in Europe wasn't fruitless at all — quite the opposite: it's especially his stay in Berlin in the years right before “Wig Out At Jagbags” that inspired this scattered — even more so than usual — jumble of songs.

To make sense of a work like “Groove Denied”, in fact, it's worth remembering that this material was born first and foremost as a personal diversion, and only later — perhaps under pressure from the artist himself — turned into an actual record. There's no rhyme or reason to it, assuming there ever was any in Malkmus's work, and above all there's not a glimmer of unified intent. If anything, the impression is of a hodgepodge born across different periods and moments, starting right from his Berlin years in the most properly kraut moments of the bunch, not coincidentally placed at the top of the tracklist: the synth-pop of “Belziger Faceplant” throws itself onto a techno dancefloor, “A Bit Wilder” slows the beat to wink at British post-punk, and “Viktor Borgia” closes out the ideal triptych by pulling together the record's most experimental and acidic influences. “Forget Your Place”, a little further on, is the psychedelic outpost: a dark, muffled tunnel where voices bounce around and fade away.

If, on the other hand, you prefer the Malkmus of old, there's plenty to sink your teeth into on "Groove Denied". The loping midtempo tracks "Come Get Me" and "Rushing The Acid Frat" ooze weirdness by the bucketload, and the touch of the Californian transplanted to Portland would be recognizable among a thousand others. "Bossvicerate" is another classic slice of the Malkmus repertoire, an oblique nursery rhyme the likes of which hadn't come out of that hat in a good five years, if not for those synthetic chimes giving the recipe a slight update. New elements that are already missing by the time we get to the following ballad, "Ocean of Revenge", just to be clear. As if to say that, no matter how far you try to push yourself, in the end you always come back to where you feel you belong.

Back to the roots: Traditional Techniques

In early March 2020 Stephen Malkmus released his third album in just two years: Traditional Techniques. Like Sparkle Hard, it's a return to his American roots, but seen from a different angle.

After all, these songs were born while the album released two years earlier was being recorded, and were later reworked with contributions from Chris Funk (Decemberists) on arrangements and Matt Sweeney (Bonnie Prince Billy) on guitar.

The material on "Traditional Techniques" is largely acoustic, often taking the form of exquisite ballads — "The Greatest Own In Legal History", "Signal Western", "Amberjack" — but also electro-acoustic midtempo numbers (the single "Xian Man") and all-American folk contaminations ("Cash Up", "Brainwashed"). The trademark Malkmus we know best stands out in the oblique trajectory of "Shadowbanned", the one track on the record that's vaguely Pavement-esque, and in the peculiar bittersweet poetry of "What Kind Of Person", which unfolds over layers of guitar arpeggios. Also notable is "ACC Kirtan", led by the sound of the sitar. Working on tradition to give it new forms and content, going back in order to move forward: either way, the important thing, as always, is to ward off the risk of standing still.

Contributions by Silvio Pizzica for "Can's Ege Bamyasi Played By Stephen Malkmus And Friends", Stefano Ferreri for "Wig Out at Jagbags", Maria Teresa Soldani for "Sparkle Hard" and Fabio Guastalla for "Groove Denied" and "Traditional Techniques"

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google