Chimaera

Here's Sylvie Courvoisier's Chimaera ensemble in a July 2024 webcast. The ensemble here includes Nate Wooley and Wadada Leo Smith on  trumpet, Christian Fennesz on  guitar, Drew Gress on bass, Kenny Wollessen on vibraphone and percussion, and Nasheet Waits on the drums.

Last year's Chimaera album was one of my favorite releases of 2024. The recording was inspired by the art of Odilon Redon, whose Symbolist paintings imagine a colorful, hallucinatory dream world that express intangible and invisible phenomena.

Chimaera will be performing in Knoxville on Saturday, March 29, at the Big Ears music festival, although Fennesz won't be present (I saw him at Big Ears in 2022, however).  In his place, Ikue Mori (DNA, Fred Frith, John Zorn, and much, much more) will fill in on electronics, a most welcome addition. I've seen Mori several times now at Big Ears, most recently (2024) with Frith; in fact, other that Courvoisier herself, I think I've seen all of these performers at previous Big Ears. 

I love this music so much and this set is one of the main reasons I'm going to Big Ears this year. If you're among one of the (very, very) few people who wonder what kind of music I'm into today, you need look no further than this set.