Kingdom of Jones
Kingdom of Jones
Brooklyn, NY
| Kingdom of JonesiTunes Artist's PageiTunes Album Page | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Song Title | Time | Price | |
| 1. | Kingdom of Jones | 04:24 | $0.99 |
| 2. | Deathvariations No. 1 | 01:33 | $0.99 |
| 3. | Queens | 01:51 | $0.99 |
| 4. | Guitar Gestures No. 1 | 07:27 | $0.99 |
| 5. | Poplicola | 02:31 | $0.99 |
| 6. | Rosmersholm | 04:08 | $0.99 |
| 7. | War Is Good for Business | 02:56 | $0.99 |
| 8. | Soldados (Soldiers) | 12:47 | |
| 9. | Maya | 03:23 | $0.99 |
| 10. | Bike Spoke Pianos | 04:51 | $0.99 |
| 11. | Guitar Gestures No. 2 (tiple) | 09:56 | $0.99 |
| 12. | Bomber Goes Home Instead | 08:12 | $0.99 |
| 13. | Oracion Para la Caida del Sol | 01:56 | $0.99 |
New York composer and guitarist Cristian Amigo named his "new music jam band", Kingdom of Jones, after another bastion of fierce cultural resistance. During the American Civil War, confederates dubbed the city of Ellisville, Mississippi - an anti-secessionist Union stronghold in the midst of the Confederacy - the "Free and Sovereign State of Jones."
Amigo's kingdom reflects his position on what it takes to exist in a complicated, global world of sonic possibilities. Its wide-ranging sound world moves between the softest ambient acoustic gestures, and the heaviest kinds of industrial and electric sounds. The result is no musically-beleaguered enclave: rather it offers listeners many points of entry into its global amalgam.
Amigo is an acoustic and electric guitarist with an open improvising bent, and an eclectic composer of theatre and performance works, orchestral and chamber music, fierce riffs, and art song. This, the first Kingdom of Jones CD, was recorded and assembled while traveling during his Guggenheim Fellowship year (2006-2007) and is a vehicle for exploration of the avant-populist music in his head, heart, and hands. Cristian Amigo and Kingdom of Jones (KOJ) are an ensemble whose core players include Amigo (guitars, electronics, voice), Izzi Ramkissoon (bass, laptop, processes) and Guillermo Cardenas (percussion and trance). Playing live sets of amplified LOUD music, they rock the place down with experimental, often abstract, music and beats, soundscapes, and electronic processes. In live performance, the band remixes and fragments all types of music (Messiaen, Golijov, Perez Prado, Nino Rota, Bob Marley, Fela, Led Zeppelin, Cypress Hill, rumba, etc.), and recasts them mixed with Kingdom of Jones sounds and original compositions.
GUITAR PLAYER MAGAZINE
EDITOR'S PICK
I kind of hate myself for digging this abrasive clatter [War is Good for Business] because it's galaxies away from my Beatles- and Beethoven-forged sense of composition. But it rocks real hard against its orchestra of bloops and bleeps, and then breaks down to a mournful sound collage. A great theme for Halliburton's symphony of opportunism.
GAPPLEGATE GUITAR AND BASS BLOG
"Cristian Amigo has created the equivalent to a walk through Grand Central Station, where every imaginable sort of person may be walking by you. It is music that goes from point A to point B in a non-direct route through all kinds of geometric thickets. It is music that can be heard profitably many times because it is born of a complex aural orientation. It is not written out, apparently, as much as it is performed and assembled. What makes this recording worth hearing is that every piece in the puzzle somehow fits the whole and every piece has intrinsic interest as music. There are quiet sections of dreamy contemplation. There are toe-tapping grooves, some psychedelic rock moments, sprawling but brief soundscapes, and some really interesting guitar work. Amigo makes music here that expresses a something that might not be defined in words to good advantage. It is the multiplicity of the modern experience."
by Grego Edwards
With some takes I was just bowled over...such a diverse wealth of material.
by Barton McLean
Wonderfully rangy and atmospheric.
by Mark Adamo
Cristian Amigo is an excellent creative artist, guitarist and composer whose works reflect his concern with tradition and innovation in creative music in America.
by Wadada Leo Smith
