***Avan songstress AZITA has returned from wherever she goes when we can’t see her, and as always, she’s bearing drifts of music that shock us out of our reverie and into hers. The sounds of her new Year are bright, bold, surrealistic, playful—among the best songs you’re gonna hear in this or any other annum. Azita’s stance going back through the years has been bold, to say the least. It’s possible that audacious is a better word for it. Or worse—but extremity is part of the essence of her expression, whether in the form of extreme punk theatre with BRIDE OF NO NO and THE SCISSOR GIRLS, the electronic sounds on her solo debut, Music For Scrambled Brains, or the far reaches of piano pop music that she has surveyed on her albums Enantiodromia, Life On the Fly, How Will You? and Disturbing the Air. Whichever direction Azita is flying off into, she moves with preternatural conviction. Of course, this is just what we see down here on the ground. From her perspective, Azita’s just doing what she does and it’s totally normal. That’s what makes her such a compelling freak in our eyes—excuse me, artist—there’s a difference in gravity, and even among her peers in Chicago’s music and arts scene (of which she was voted 2011’s best singer-songwriter by the Chicago Reader), Azita stands apart. Why are we not surprised that these songs of Year were conceived for an avant-garde theatre piece? Azita has collaborated previously with playwright...
LP $19.75
11/20/2012
***Disturbing the Air is a record of new songs from AZITA, featuring piano and vocals. For these songs, only the piano proved delicate and flexible enough to hold Azita as she sang of unsaid moments, testing the words she heard that no one else dared to say. Even with a minimal pallete, these performances are a brooding, commanding lot. Disturbing the Air considers the darkness that comes over a relationship in imbalance; vacated by one party, leaving the other in a faded, ghostly state. For Azita, this is a state of non-being. It means matching oneself to the void, a terrifying encounter. For we who listen, it means that we compare this album to no other—not even records that share its piano-and-vocal arrangement. Disturbing the Air is an expression; a singular statement, made more of necessity than desire. Two and a half years have passed since How Will You? was released. Disturbing the Air emerges as a shadow side to that album, a glowing opacity emanating from within. The music and lyrics are rich and wild at times, a mere whisper at others. (STREET DATE - 9/20/2011)
LP+CD $19.75
09/20/2011