Neti - Neti (Amirtha Kidambi & Matt Evans) + Chaka Benson

Neti - Neti (Amirtha Kidambi & Matt Evans):

Neti-Neti is the lo-fi ritual music duo of Matt Evans (drums/electronics) and Amirtha Kidambi (vocals/electronics) that formed amidst their mutual experiences surrounding grief after the death of loved ones. The duo shapes a vessel for processing this loss using hazy rhythmic interplay, dredging piles of noise, and serene moments of ethereal melodic counterpoint. Neti-Neti, translated as “It is not this, it is not that” from Sanskrit, is a contemplation on the nature of reality, life, death, birth and rebirth extracted from the Hindu text of rituals The Upanishads. This meditation serves as distillation of the duo’s relationship that emerged from the viscera of a year and a half of exchanging thoughts on the nonlinear nature of grief and its chaotic emotional trajectory, the abstraction of a person without physical form, and the trauma of one’s foundations being shattered, necessitating a total spiritual rebirth. Having never played together, the two met up for the first time in 2020 and recorded their first improvisations which became the source material for their first release Impermanence.

Impermanence is a crumpled, lo-fi collection of collaged improvisations for feedback drumkit and pedal manipulated vocals that follow the unpredictable and nonlinear process of grief like an abstracted improvisational “score”. Neti-Neti perform this music as a “mourning ritual” that extends beyond themselves to the audience, creating a space to hold and be present with loss in all its forms, personal and universal. The language of Evans’ and Kidambi’s improvisations is a primal, noisey, rhythmic, and melodic music that resonates in the ancient combination of voice and percussion.

Matt Evans is a drummer and composer known for his collaborative projects in the new music sphere with bands Tigue and Bearthoven, and as an occasional collaborator with Deerhoof, OHYUNG, and Ayano Elson. His solo-work presents concept driven embodied improvisational performance through an eco-fictional lens and is the basis for his large ensemble Big Spin featuring Amirtha Kidambi on vocals and saxophone. This duo is Evans’ first fully free improvised foray, finding a natural partner in Kidambi who is deeply immersed in the world of free improv and free jazz.

Amirtha Kidambi is the bandleader of incendiary protest group Elder Ones, and has duos with improvisers including Luke Stewart, Darius Jones, Matteo Liberatore and Maria Grand, and is a performer and collaborator in Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl, various projects with William Parker and in Robert Ashley’s “New Band”. 

Chaka Benson:

Chaka Benson is well known around the Philly Space Music scene, and has had live appearances on local ambient radio shows.... StarsEnd, MusicWithSpace, GalacticTravels and DataCultAudio. You can find him out performing locally in unique spaces like the Art Museum, Bartram's Garden, and the Discovery Center. The sound is ever-evolving and changing over time, layered, a challenge to pin down and always rewarded!  Each performance has a new patch specially prepared for it and a new improvised set is performed each time. Always on the move maybe he's coming your way soon!  Check his FB and Instagram and find out more...

Funding for this event provided by the Philadelphia Engagement Grant from Haverford College.


accessibility: space is on the second floor up a flight of stairs.