Electric Umbrella #29

Finally, a new Umbrella again after the amazing October edition. WORM continues to celebrate the fine art of musical improvisation, for you to enjoy. This time we present an amazing writer/performer/sound artist from The Hague and a truly golden trio from the eclectic Amsterdam musical avant-garde.

Marianna Maruyama
Translation, heritage, and sensing bodies are at the heart of every project by Maruyama. From the first hint of an idea to the unpredictable afterlife of an artwork, curiosity plays a vital role in stimulating and deepening interconnection. Research and site-specificity ground the artworks, performances, and writing, which adopt an intimate and personal approach to the broad spectrum of everyday life’s knowns and unknowns. Formally, they take shape as works in stone, sound, scent, mail-art, and literature.
listen here to the beautiful album she made with Hessel Veldman.
Marianna’s website.
On Instagram: thesetwentyone letters

Mother Tongue
listen here.
A Senegalese Griot singer, a Korean jazz drummer and an Amsterdam multi-instrumentalist / instant composer find each other on an open playground. With m’bira, xalam, drumkit, voice, percussion, household tools and an electric clavichord on 220 volt, they sit down and take off: Wrrrrrraaang!!

Singer and percussionist Mola Sylla is in many ways a musical explorer. Born and raised in Dakar, Senegal, he grew up in the tradition of the griots. Griots play conveying stories – sometimes decorated with music, theater and dance – which all play an important role in West African culture. His rhythm and melodic compositions differ from the western conventional schedules and provide surprising twists.

Sun-Mi Hong moved to Europe when she was 19 to study jazz in Amsterdam and that is where she met her soulmates. In her playing with Mother Tongue she lets herself be inspired by both the world jazz and traditional Korean musics. She was honoured with the Paul Acket award for an “extraordinary contribution to jazz” at the North Sea jazz festival this July.

Oscar Jan Hoogland is the sound of Amsterdam in person. He invented his own instrument by putting a clavichord, a keyboard instrument from the 17th century, on 220 Volt electricity. As the last student of the late pianist, composer and improvisor Misha Mengelberg he tears like a tornado through the Amsterdam jazz and impro scene.