Amirtha Kidambi's Elder Ones - Live at Le Guess Who? 2025
Elder Ones performed live at Le Guess Who? 2025 as part of Amirtha Kidambi's curation at the festival. Entitled 'Outernational', Kidambi's curation centered around the belief that music can play a central role in building global cultural solidarity and community in our tumultuous and revolutionary times. Watch the concert film of the performance and listen to the full audio.
Amirtha Kidambi's music is grounded by a deep commitment to social practice. The composer and her ensemble Elder Ones confront and resist systems of oppression with compositions of sonic activism, boycotting song structures in longform exploratory suites.
It's the soundtrack of a tumultuous demonstration: of drums leading a persistent march and saxophones screeching in vocal defiance. The harmonium creates a textural landscape of drone for Kidambi's voice to travel, while the double-bass anchors the chaos. We're in the realm of free jazz, post rock and radical electroacoustic improvisation in which the vocalist weaves syncopation and dissonance, through new avant-garde anthems for people's movements.
Le Guess Who? Recordings
The publication of this recording is part of Le Guess Who?’s ongoing expansion of the festival’s recordings archive, with 150+ recordings from past editions now freely available online.
This archive contains audio and/or video recordings of performances by Saul Williams meets Carlos Niño & Friends featuring Surya Botofasina, The Dwarfs of East Agouza, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio, Ali Sethi & Nicolás Jaar, aja monet, ASA-CHANG & Junray, DARKSIDE, Meshell Ndegeocello, Kamilya Jubran, Alan Sparhawk, Stereolab, Tom Skinner, Selda Bağcan, clipping., Aldous Harding, Deerhunter, Art Ensemble of Chicago, The Microphones, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Arooj Aftab, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and many more.
Captured at TivoliVredenburg's Ronda on Friday, 7 November 2025.
Amirtha Kidambi - vocals, harmonium, synth, fx
Alfredo Colon - tenor saxophone, fx
Matt Nelson - soprano saxophone, fx
Lester St. Louis - bass, synth
Jason Nazary - drums, electronics
Direction: Dammes Kieft
Camera: Anaïs Saebu, Emily Duurland, Hannah Zwaans, Manou Veldman, Jonathan Sipkema, Nicky Pajkić, Rikash Gobardhan, Yuma Eekman, Dammes Kieft
Production: Studio Dammes, Ramon de Lima
Montage & Grade: Joep van Weelden
AC & Datahandling: Dennis Bravenboer
Sound recording: Marc Broer
Photography: Lisanne Lentink