After 23 years of intense traditional study of the Kora and Oud Kane Mathis releases a record featuring himself on both instruments in a trio setting with fellow New York-based musicians John Hadfield on drums (Yo-Yo Ma, Kinan Azmeh) and Sam Minaie on bass (Tigran Hamasyan, Mark Guiliana). This record was beautifully recorded, and mixed by John Davis (Brad Mehldau) at The Bunker recording studio in Brooklyn, New York in live sessions over 3 days.
Geminus features all original material that is strongly rooted in Kane’s long standing study of these two traditions. 15 years of frequent trips to The Gambia to study with his Kora teacher Malamini Jobarteh and 5 and half years of close continual study of the Oud with Münir Nurettin Beken have given Kane a strong traditional foundation from which to branch out from. 2011 saw Kane’s kora study recognized by the National Center For Arts and Culture in The Gambia. All the pieces on this record are equally constructed from traditional and modern elements. The Kora pieces are all firmly based in the repeating pattern, called Kumbengo, that drives the looping forms of Kora pieces but the arrangements expand in ways that traditional pieces do not, the solo concepts are also equally traditional and contemporary. The Oud pieces use modes that progress in ways that are very strongly rooted in the melodic progressions of their traditional modes but have harmonic and rhythmic elements that are rarely found therein.
This debut is not quite like any other record that interprets these traditions in a band setting. The lead instruments are uniquely exposed and the general approach trades languid romanticism for highly engaged dynamic energy. Often, fusion efforts buttress cultures up against one another, seldom going beyond the novelty of the encounter. This project presents more as the productive result of a conversation intending to draw equally from each tradition involved.