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The Complex Relationship Between Two Simple Machines

by Armen Nalbandian, Dave King, Chris Speed

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Mirrors 06:18
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Memoria 07:12

about

The Complex Relationship Between Two Simple Machines is avant-garde pianist and composer Armen Nalbandian’s first album in nearly 4 years and 21st album as a leader. It features an all-new three-piece band featuring two members of the acclaimed genre-bending band The Bad Plus, drummer Dave King and saxophonist/clarinetist Chris Speed.

Since his last 2019 recordings Live on Sunset and Ghosts, Nalbandian has spent years determining his cohorts for his most important and vulnerable album to date, placing King and Speed in a rare open-improvisational setting. In King and Speed, Nalbandian has found like-minded musicians neither trapped by the dogma of tradition nor counter-tradition. Omitting the bass in an atypical piano-drums-saxaphone/clarinet configuration, the band creates a poetic and cinematic offering that rethinks the possibilities of the genre.

This first installment of their project takes its name from the combined practice of Senegalese physicist Oumar Haidara Fall and Spanish artist Rubén Ramos Balsa which presents a unification of theories from different realms of physics. The album cover features the technology discovered by Fall sketched by Ramos Balsa in its most primary form.

While spontaneously composed, the music featured on the album references key inspirations of Nalbandian’s during the album’s development including Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Memoria (2021) and Tsai Ming-Liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), films which also inspired the sequencing and spacing of the songs on the album.

The Complex Relationship Between Two Simple Machines is independently produced by Armen himself, his brother Ara Nalbandian and curator Jing Yi Teo. The album is the first of several artifacts from the collaboration.

credits

released May 21, 2023

Armen Nalbandian | piano
Dave King | drums
Chris Speed | tenor saxophone, clarinet

Recorded live at East West Studios, Studio 3
Los Angeles, CA on August 23, 2022.

Producers | Armen Nalbandian, Ara Nalbandian, Jing Yi Teo

Recording Engineer | Chaz Sexton
Mix | Ara Nalbandian

Cover Art | Sketch by Rubén Ramos Balsa depicting the discovery of Oumar Haidara Fall
Art | Rubén Ramos Balsa
Photography | Jing Yi Teo

Spontaneously composed by Armen Nalbandian, Dave King, and Chris Speed

Thank you to our families, Ruben & Stella and Oumar Haidara Fall

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about

Armen Nalbandian Los Angeles, California

Armen Nalbandian is an avant-garde and experimental composer and pianist whose practice seeks to expand the possibilities of sound and performance through spontaneous group composition, prepared piano and Fender Rhodes, and electronically layered improvisations.
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