"Avant-garde quartet, stylistically stateless, at times hypnotic"

The album "tellKujira", marks the beginning of tellKujira's partnership with Superpang Records. It was recorded in December 2021 with the help of the Emilia Romagna Music Commission and Area Sismica. It is the result of eight-handed writing after a number of highly wanted artistic residencies, despite the challenges associated with the pandemic time.

tellKujira is Ambra Chiara Michelangeli (Viola/fx), Francesco Diodati (Guitar/fx), Francesco Guerri (Cello) and Stefano Calderano (Guitar/fx). The band was formed in the autumn of 2020 as an 'imperfect' chamber quartet, with two electric guitars instead of violins: music moves between contemporary, electronics, art rock, and free jazz, and is based on improvisation sessions. This approach establishes a fluid musical path that is open to contamination and moves towards abstract soundscapes, ambient, polyrhythm, and industrial timbres. A diverse combination that is not afraid to dismantle any language.

Although the band had a distinct character from the start, its music evolved swiftly. During the study sessions, the themes explored were deconstruction and fragmentation, while the live performances gradually evolved into moments of total absorption, increasingly serving as a site of deliberate recomposition. This effort eventually led tellKujira to a Fragmentarium, a tool for gathering and rearranging pieces based on an instruction code that generates an unlimited palette of possibilities. This strategy allows them a lot of freedom while keeping the composition rigour.

tellKujira is co-produced by Area Sismica, one of Europe's most renowned avant-garde music businesses, and the Emilia Romagna Music Commission. Between 2022 and 2023 the band performed at Moers Festival (D), Ground Music Festival (I), Suedtirol Jazz Festival (I), Umbria Jazz (I), Curva Minore Festival (I), Soglie Festival (I), Torino Jazz Festival (I), Centro D'arte (I), Cafe Oto (UK). In conjunction with the album release, tellKujira will participate in a three-week creative residency at IRCAM in Paris in November 2023 as part of the research project "Raising Co-creativity in Cyber-Human Musicianship."