The British magazine “Wheel Me Out” once wrote: “Unable to find an assessment of John Kameel Farah’s music that doesn’t use vague terms like ‘cutting edge’ and ‘genre busting’, we thought JKF might like to enlighten us in his own words. Classically trained, sonically obsessed and at a cultural crossroads, he reluctantly offered: “Post-Modern… but after that””. In 2014, Toronto and Berlin based composer and pianist John Kameel Farah was guest at Enjoy Jazz for the first time, in the Heiliggeistkirche Heidelberg. At the time we described it as “post classical music” to raise curiosity for this classically trained experimental improvisation artist who was taught by Terry Riley and is enthusiastic Bach, Schönberg, Feldman and Arabic music. And we then experienced a loop and sampling artist on piano, organ and synthesiser with a much wilder mix (Renaissance + electro beats + Ravel + oriental). The heterogenic sound material in his current album “Unfolding” is full of unexpected twists and turns for which a critic once only managed to find one word “maximalism”.
