manas & n.r. safi: alone we are alone as far down as the sediment

MANAS -- otherwise known as the duo of iconoclastic guitarist Tashi Dorji and drummer extraordinaire Thom Nguyen -- have made tsunami-sized waves in the free jazz and improv scene with their numerous tape and LP releases (drawing praise and support from such luminaries and fellow-travelers as Bill Nace and Ben Chasny) and their face-melting live shows, including high profile touring with Godspeed! You Black Emperor. Back in the summer of 2019 they invited Naujawanan Baidar's N.R. Safi to sit in with them at a show organized at Fleetwoods, a self-proclaimed "rock and roll wedding chapel" in Dorji and Nguyen's current home of Asheville, North Carolina. Captured on tape was roughly thirty minutes of raw and pummeling improvisation, guitar-become-drum-become-guitar, building and collapsing over and over again like a collective howl from the depths of a necrotic capitalist empire in decay. Personnel: Tashi Dorji - electric guitar; N.R. Safi - electric guitar; Thom Nguyen - drums, percussion. Recorded live at Fleetwoods in 2019 by Thom Nguyen. Dedicated to the memory of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish from whom we borrowed the title for this piece.