The American artist Rob Mazurek has maintained a strong connection with Tenerife for many years. Consequently, this key figure in the Chicago avant-garde has recorded his latest album, Nestor’s nest, in a particularly idyllic setting on the island, released through the local Keroxen label. However, it is an unyielding album, wherein the New Jersey musician, boasting over fifty works across various projects, showcases his most avant-garde and intriguing side through the use of modular synthesizers, paraphonic synthesizers, and analogue digital synthesizers, in addition to trumpets, bells, and flutes.
This piece offers a highly addictive avant-garde experience that reflects a tropical landscape filled with mangoes, papayas, and otherworldly star fruits. Essentially, listening to this album transports us to an alternate Tenerife within the multiverse, featuring hypnotic tracks such as Banana Fruit and Under the papaya tree. Mladen Kurajica, the label’s director, recalls that Rob Mazurek “has been visiting Tenerife since 2004 when we, as Colectivo Drone, organised the Croma experimental music festival at Castillo San Felipe in Puerto de la Cruz.” Since that time, the versatile artist has participated approximately ten times in various formats and has collaborated with bands on the label like Gaf and the Death Star or Tupperwear through his Sao Paulo Underground project. “We have become great friends, and he adores Tenerife,” Kurajica shares.
“We have been discussing releasing something for ages, and here it is at last.” Mazurek’s artistry has traversed numerous dimensions, spanning improvised music, concrete, electronic, free jazz, and soundtracks, making it exceedingly challenging to categorise. “Rob Mazurek is a multifaceted artist who is deeply engaged in painting, multimedia art, and of course, music in all its forms,” he remarks. “This work leans more towards his purely exploratory side, contrasting with his recognised compositional work in jazz. The album results from his experiments with modular synthesiser systems that he occasionally performs with. If it must be classified, I would place it in the electronic genre in the vein of Autechre.”
The musician recorded this project last year at the residence of the organisers and creators of Keroxen, Néstor Torrens and Pura Márquez, in Bajamar, where he spent an extensive period. It is a remarkably unique and inspiring area where plans are underway for a sustainable cultural space intended to serve as an extension of the El Tanque cultural venue hosting the Keroxen festival annually, as well as a recording location for the eponymous label. Rob Mazurek is a prolific musician, capable of producing four or five albums in a single year across entirely different projects. Nonetheless, the head of the record label acknowledges that this particular work likely has a clear connection to the development of the Brazilian tropical sound journey that the artist recorded from 2000 to 2005.
“Rob Mazurek resided in Manaus in the Brazilian Amazon for several years, and nature undoubtedly influenced the conception of that work, which may link back to this album as the inspiration stems from the tropical scenery and the fruits of the region,” he emphasises.
Moreover, for the Keroxen label, releasing such a project is undoubtedly a significant achievement. “It aligns with our philosophy of producing works by artists who share a close relationship with the Festival. Rob Mazurek has consistently served as a reference for many of us who follow his own work and numerous other esteemed projects he has been part of. Additionally, it provides a source of inspiration, acting as a sort of opening and invitation for local artists to explore sound freely. Ultimately, Kurajica reflects on how Rob Mazurek has attended Keroxen on numerous occasions, with his solo performance perhaps being the most memorable, as it diverged greatly from what we typically experience. “It was a sound performance characterised by a high degree of intensity, spirituality, and unpredictability throughout, accompanied by the exceptional quality and compositional elegance that defines all of his work.”
