From Innova Records:
Zilzal is the Arabic word for “earthquake,” and there couldn’t be a more fitting word to describe the collision of musical worlds on the debut album by the duo of guitarist Ayman Fanous and violinist Jason Hwang. Forged in New York’s downtown music scene of the late 1990s, this duo has developed a unique improvisational language that spans many streams of musical culture, aesthetics, and compositional philosophy. In its intercultural egalitarianism, it could only have been made in America.
Beautifully recorded by Sal Mormando and mastered by Grammy-winner Silas Brown, these improvisations were performed with no prior musical planning. But Fanous and Hwang have become so well-attuned to each other’s gestures, moods, and trajectories that sometimes the music can sound through-composed. Figure and ground give way to each other seamlessly, and at times meld into one and the same. The pieces range from the lyrical and jazzy, to the fiery, the melancholic and contemplative, and to rhythmic abandon. Throughout the recording, Fanous and Hwang employ the full palettes available to them, resulting in a music that is at once orchestral, cinematic, spontaneous, and at all times, visceral.
