One of the best known and most exciting of N.Y.C. improvisers and composers, electric harpist Zeena Parkins has released five extremely varied albums under her own name, as well as numerous records as a member of the groups Skeleton Crew (with Fred Frith and Tom Cora), News From Babel, Elliot Sharp's Carbon, No Safety and OWT.
One of the most intriguing and inspiring of Zeena Parkins' long-form compositions, Maul examines the lives and deaths of Jewish gangsters throughout the ages. Utilizing texts in the lost language of Rotwelsch, she weaves a complex tapestry of voices, sounds and instrumental counterpoint, evoking a side of the Jewish experience perhaps best forgotten.
