“Avant-garde quartet, stylistically stateless, at times hypnotic”
Agnese Amico– Violin
Francesco Diodati – Guitar/fx
Francesco Guerri – Cello
Stefano Calderano – Guitar/fx
tellKujira’s 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.
The band performed at Moers Festival (D), Area Sismica (I), 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, Novara Jazz, Porgy and
Bess (A), Oto Cafe (GB),Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024 (OFF), Interpenetration
(A), IRCAM (F), Flux springtime (I), s(nodi) (I), Soundscape Festival (i) Future
Festival (P).
tellKujira, Superpang records, 2022
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.
La lucha es un poema colectivo SuperPang records, April 2026
The music of La lucha es un poema colectivo was conceived and composed during a long artistic residency at IRCAM in Paris in November 2023 and will be released by SuperPang Records.
‘In November 2023, we were in residence in Paris when we found ourselves in
the midst of protests and strikes by workers at the Centre Georges Pompidou.
They were demanding the respect of their rights. Entering that place as
outsiders, making art while hundreds of people outside risked losing their jobs,
was disorienting.
This is the starting point for the title of this album, evocative yet at the same
time tangible. A phrase, as often happens, borrowed from those who had, in
turn, borrowed it before us, words that are not and cannot be only ours. Words
too heavy to be slaves to context or syntax, yet words that resonate within us,
move us, and open rifts in our history as a group.
A strange plunge, strange despite the fact that the premises were clear from the
start, with well-defined lines of a unified design. And if we ask ourselves, looking
around, not so much what but rather with whom we would like to share it, we
imagine the music of this album within that groove, in that intangible bond that
unites a collective of people who, upon reading this sentence written on a wall,
in a street, pause for a moment, slow down, rest their gaze, and know they are
still alive.
’
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‘… a concert of strong emotional impact also thanks to a total interplay of the group – mature balance in the contribution, always dialogic, of the individual musicians, concentration, deep listening, collective narration, wise use of electronics as well as dynamics, always pertinent to the sound fabric in the making – which has given life to organic music, without forcing or second thoughts, in search of what is indispensable and necessary. One of the most intense moments, for the writer, of the entire review’
[Daniela Veronesi, ‘tracce di jazz’ CARTOLINE-Suedtirol Jazz Festival]
‘Halfway through the set, the atmosphere definitely changes to challenging and the post-rock and contemporary influences come to the fore, which makes the music played by the magnificent quartet of musicians even more interesting. The penetrating set, enhanced with electronics, becomes even more intriguing. Fantastically interesting opening day’
[Dick Hovenga ‘Written in Music’ Het houdt maar niet op met spannende klanken op Südtirol Jazzfestival]