This absolutely unique musical collaboration places 4 musical luminaries of jazz and experimentalism into the musical maelstrom of Korean shamanism; interweaving with the musical cell structure approach of Cecil Taylor, the harmelodics of Ornette Coleman, the Carnatic classical tradition of Southern India, and the eclectic Afrological expressionism of the Agharta/Pangea electric period of Miles Davis.
In Korean musical tradition, a mudang is a type of shaman that has become possessed by a god, called a momju. Mudang perform fortune telling using their spiritual powers derived from their possession. They preside over a kut (rite) involving song and dance. The highly electric music on this album is directly inspired by the rhythms and Spirit of Korean shamanism. Henry Kaiser, Simon Barker, and Bill Laswell each have spent more than one-half of their musical lifetimes collaborating with Korean traditional musicians. They invited saxophonist Rudresh Mahanthappa to join them for this newly energized exploration of the musical unknown. The result is compelling, ecstatic, surprising, and kaleidoscopic.
