BIMHUIS REFLEX series: FARIDA AMADOU Kaleidoscope Ensemble

The series 

BIMHUIS REFLEX is a series of musical projects where musicians are requested to reflect on societal/historical circumstances they have been confronted with in their personal life through musical form they create and realise in performance with a group of fellow musicians.

In the first REFLEX vocalist/cellist Sanem Kalfa reflected on Corona pandemic realities. Oud-player Nawras Althaky reflected on his migrational and refugee experiences and drummer Yoran Vroom also reflects on the misery- and hope-sides of the Corona pandemic. It’s not only musicians from the rather international Dutch scene but also musicians from outside, as Kit Downs, Ben Wendel, Petter Eldh or Farida Amadou, who were involved in the series. From the projects of the series a couple of permanent groups emerged like Sanem Kalfa’s Miraculous Layers, Kit Downs’ Dr Snap and Laura Polence’s vocal group August 38th. Hitherto 5 female musicians happily were involved and 9 male musicians - so there’s still good reason to work to some stronger balance. All REFLEX contributions are documented on video available on Bimhuis TV and partly released as albums on Bimhuis Recording (link see below). The series is supported by art organisation AMMODO until 2027. Next Reflex edition will be on September 26 (see Bimhuis agenda).

https://www.ammodo-art.org/art/project/reflex

Here I reflect on the REFLEX-contribution of Belgian electric bassist Farida Amadou who performed at Bimhuis on June 13, 2025.


The Kaleidoscope work 

With her Kaleidoscope Ensemble Brussel electric bass player Farida Amadou unleashed a seizing, deeply authentic sonic impact with vibrant inner reverberation leaving striking traces.

She accomplished it in a convincing, effective way with a few simple means and deep confidence in its working and potential in the hands, and spirit of her six well-chosen fellow musicians: Marta Warelis (keys), Lotte Anker (ts, ss), Aquiles Navarro (tr), Lukas Koenig (dr), Lukas Akintaya (dr), a quite original and promising line-up.

The music departed in a longer stretch of quiet percussive gait from which gradually walls and storms of sound emerged and cumulatively piled up. Those were evoked by the intensely whisking and in high flight improvising horns of Anker and Navarro that operated from and on the ostinato-like bass pattern.

Together with the differentially acting two drummers, Akintaya and Koenig, it set free huge primal forces and tense energy driving the whole and expanding it. Koenig and Akintaya not only sparked mutually reinforcing rhythm waves. Both delivered in their very own way a fascinating component of cymbal work. It all resulted in various forms of stark confluence, culminating in heavy climaxes. In this respect it had something in common with Coltrane‘s "Love Supreme“.

It was an incredibly seizing experience to watch and immerse myself in, a primal sonic happening. Sounds of a world in turmoil and on erring paths collided with the positive sound power WE have access to and can harness to generate and mobilize beauty, the true lasting richness of this world.

And: feelings about the present state were impacted in the sound and expressed explicitly in calmly articulated cutting spoken word parts of deep sincere urgency.

“The real dangerous minority is the rich“
(quote from the spoken word part of Farida Amadou‘s Reflex)

Amadou’s performance revealed characteristics that seem at first sight at odds with features often ascribed to her way of operating in improvised music*. The ensemble started with a long stretch of small percussion sounds to open up, explore the acoustic space and giving it shape. She calmly worked with ostinato-like minimal repetitions that gradually were mightily engorging (the Boléro principle). She worked with a strong and pure simplicity as a firm basis that contained a rich potential that she fully succeeded to release with and out of her ensemble. She resorted to musical and rhythmical elements of her Niger ancestry without reproducing it literally or as lead theme on the surface.

In processing a diversity of influences, she apparently follows unifying principles that she had adopted from her mother's attitudes towards the challenges of migration and cultural assimilation/accomodation. Farida Amadou is a person with a strong ancestral basis and even strong openness and curiosity for exploring the unknown. With her Reflex contribution she clearly raised it to a higher conclusive and impacting level. In that sense the intention and ambition of the series were clearly realized by her and her fellow musicians’ contribution.

Text & photo’s © Henning Bolte

*Her music making is often indicated as ‘experimental’. I prefer the term ‘explorative’ for that. This later term also clearer includes the listener of the music.

Video Reflex Farida Amadou

The series’ video-links 


All by Ammodo supported makers in the Reflex series 

2022
Sanem Kalfa - Miraculous Layers
Yoran Vroom - A Forgotten Story
Alistair Payne
Kit Downes - Dr Snap/Children with Pitchforks
‍
2023
Joris Roelofs
Laura Polence & August 38th
Sun-Mi Hong & BIDA Orchestra - Invisible Ropes
Ben Wendel
‍
2024
Petter Eldh
Marta Warelis
Nicolò Ricci
Mo van der Does

2025
Nawras Altaky - Arise! Journey of Resilience
Farida Amadou & Kaleidoscope Ensemble
(Jamie Peet)