Mo Boma was the trio of Skuli Sverrisson (six string and fretless bass), Carsten Tiedemann (percussion, acoustic, electric, and ebow guitar - also known as 'infinite guitar'), and Jamshied Sharifi (synthesizer, source and wave sequences). Together they formed a group that was at once jazz, world music, ambient, electronic, percussive, and, on occasion, dance music. They drew from influences around the world and attempted to turn their philosophical vision of the world into a music which reflected their views. This was instinctual and improvised music. Tiedemann did field recordings all over the globe (much in Africa) and Sharifi translated those into the live performances. Sverrisson was Tiedemann's original partner in the band and played his muse throughout.
Jon Hassell was the person who brought the trio to light. After hearing their sound, he was to bring recordings to the Australian label Extreme. Hassell was perhaps the perfect person to be Mo Boma's messenger as they both shared a form of Fourth World Music perspective.
From Jijimuge's liner notes:
"All things are One and have no life apart from it; the One is all things and is incomplete without the least of them. Yet the parts are parts within the whole, not merged in it; they are interfused with Reality while retaining the full identity of the part, and the One is no less One for the fact that it is a million - million parts.
Such is the Jijimuge doctrine of the Kegon School of Japanese Buddhism. In application, 'there is nothing infinite apart from finite things', naught holy or profane. All speculation, therefore, all conceptual belief is valueless until made real.
Pull out the arrow, said the Perfect One, and do not delay with enquiries as to its length and provenance, nor the name and tribe of the man who shot it."
If this sounds a bit too new age, it probably is. What's inside the music is a jazz/ambient/world project that delights, moves, and intrigues. It is more challenging than one might imagine and certainly more enjoyable than new age descriptives.
pw=saxman
Jijimuge: Interdiffusion of particulars
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