New York, NY (July 7, 2020) – Pioneering cello player, composer, singer and educator, Mike Block, has announced his latest album, Guzo, for an August 21 release on Bright Shiny Things. Guzo, which combines elements of North African, Middle Eastern and Persian musical traditions, will be Block’s third album, in three different genres, in less than one year. In conjunction, Block has released the record’s first single, “Expression of Concern,” featuring Syrian oud virtuoso Kinan Adnawi, today. Pre-order Guzo here.
A GRAMMY Award winner with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Block studied and trained in the classical world at The Julliard School and Cleveland Institute of Music, but his curiosity and imagination as a musician knows no bounds or borders. On Guzo, Block taps into fellow members of Silk Road Ensemble, students from Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, of which Block is an instructor, and musicians Block has met along his travels throughout the world.
Guzo means “journey” in the Amharic language. The record features eight original compositions, each inspired by a different culture and style of music: Malian, Levantine Arabic, Indian, Nigerian, Persian, Gulf Arabic (Khaliji), Ethiopian, and Chinese. Inspired by the idea that different parts of our personality manifest when interacting with different types of people (i.e. you act differently around your boss than with your friends), or when you are in different environments (you act differently at home than at church), Block, “wanted to see what kind of composer I might become within different musical environments and languages.”
Each composition was recorded collaboratively with musicians native to each style, “many of whom are close friends that I could trust with my vulnerability as I invited them into my compositional and arranging process,” Block states. “My goal was for the musicians featured on each piece to feel they could play naturally in their native language, while finding how my own personal voice translated to that language.” The journey that resulted for Mike, is both personal and social, internal and external, psychological and geographic.
Yo-Yo Ma has hailed Block, as the "ideal musician of the 21st-Century.” The New York Times praised Block for his "vital rich-hued solo playing.” Mike has also collaborated in performance and recordings with Stevie Wonder, Bon Iver, St. Vincent, The National, Will.i.am, The New York Philharmonic, Bobby McFerrin, Allison Krauss, Mark O’Connor, Edgar Meyer, Mike Marshall, Julian Lage, Rhiannon Giddens, Sierra Hull, Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O’Donovan, Natalia McMaster, Bruce Molsky, Darol Anger, Zakir Hussain, and Rachel Pine, amongst others.
credits
released August 21, 2020
INICHE COSEBE (“THANK YOU VERY MUCH”), INSPIRED BY TRADITIONAL MUSIC FROM WEST AFRICA (MALI), WAS RECORDED WITH BALLA KOUYATE (BALAFON), SIDY MAIGA (DJEMBE), INDRISSA KONE (TALKING DRUM/KALABASH), & YACOUBA DIABATE (KORA)
EXPRESSION OF CONCERN WAS INSPIRED BY LEVANTINE ARABIC MUSIC, AND RECORDED WITH KINAN ADNAWI (OUD), LAYTH SIDIQ (VIOLIN), TONY BARHOUM (QANUN), & SHANE SHANAHAN (PERCUSSION)
DIN KA ANTIM (“LAST DAY” OR “SUNSET PRAHAR”), INSPIRED BY CLASSICAL INDIAN MUSIC, WAS RECORDED WITH MUSICIANS FROM BROOKLYN RAGA MASSIVE: ARUN RAMAMURTHY (VIOLIN), JAY GANDHI (BANSURI), NEEL MURGAI (SITAR), SAMEER GUPTA (TABLA), & SAMARTH NAGARKAR (VOCALS)
TUNE FOR TUNDE, INSPIRED BY MUSIC FROM WEST AFRICA (NIGERIA), WAS WRITTEN THE NIGHT BEFORE GOING INTO THE STUDIO WITH TUNDE JEGEDE (KORA)
ARIOBARZANES AT THE GATE WAS INSPIRED BY PERSIAN MUSIC, AND RECORDED WITH FARZIN DEHGHAN (KEMANCHE), EHSAN MATOORI (SANTUR), & POUYA SHABANPOUR (TOMBAK)
IFRAH WEB-TISEM (“REJOICE AND SMILE”) IS A CONTEMPORARY KHALIJI-STYLE SONG CO-WRITTEN BY MIKE BLOCK (CELLO) AND AMAL WAQAR (OUD/LEAD VOCALS), WITH TAREQ RANTISI (PERCUSSION), CEREN TURKMENOGLU (VIOLIN)
GUZO (”JOURNEY”), WAS INSPIRED BY THE ÉTHIOPIQUES COMPILATION OF MUSIC FROM ETHIOPIA. THE TITLE WAS PROVIDED BY THE FATHER OF DANNY MEKONNEN (SAXOPHONE)
SWIMMING UNDER AN ORANGE SKY WAS INSPIRED BY TRADITIONAL CHINESE MUSIC, AND RECORDED WITH CHEN TAO (DIZI), ZHOU YI (PIPA), XIA WENJIE (ERHU), BAO JIPAN (GUANZI), HU JIANBING (SHENG), WU TONG (VOCALS),
& HUI WENG (GUZHENG)
PRODUCED BY MIKE BLOCK
ENGINEERED BY SEAN CAHALIN (TRACKS 1,6,8), DAN CARDINAL (TRACKS 2,7), TONY MAIMONE (TRACK 3), ALI MILLER (TRACK 4), AND MATTHEW CHAMPAGNE (TRACK 5) EDITED, MIXED, AND MASTERED BY DAN CARDINAL
COVER ART & ALBUM PACKAGE DESIGN BY MARIAN C. HOLMES
TRACK 1 RECORDED LIVE AT QDIVISION, SOMERVILLE, MA (MAY 4, 2017) TRACK 2 RECORDED LIVE AT DIMENSION SOUND STUDIOS, BOSTON, MA (MARCH 19, 2017) TRACK 3 RECORDED LIVE AT STUDIO G, BROOKLYN, MA (JULY 31, 2017)
TRACK 4 RECORDED LIVE AT VISCONTI STUDIO, LONDON, ENGLAND (OCTOBER 30, 2017) TRACK 5 RECORDED LIVE AT DEPAUW UNIVERSITY, IN (JUNE 1, 2017)
TRACK 6 RECORDED LIVE AT QDIVISION, SOMERVILLE, MA (MAY 13, 2019) TRACK 7 RECORDED LIVE AT DIMENSION SOUND STUDIOS, BOSTON, MA (MAY 7, 2019)
MIKE BLOCK is a Grammy-Award winning multi-style cellist, singer, composer, and educator, hailed by Yo-Yo Ma as the "ideal musician of the 21st-Century", and acclaimed by the NYTimes for his "vital rich-hued solo playing".
