“In the Filipino language Tagalog, Ngayon translates to ‘now.’ Appropriately, this sophomore effort from Karl Evangelista’s Apura is intended to capture the feeling of an abstract and transcendent present – a moment apart from the desperation and uncertainty that afflicted the past several years of human life.”
There’s literally nothing quite like this present moment. This one. Right now. How do you capture it? Many ways: For example, you could lose yourself in the stunning mantra of repetitive minimal techno blaring on the dance floor of some underground rave. Or, perhaps on the other end of the spectrum, you might unfurl your soul along the threads of some wild and free experimental jazz poetry, no two bars ever identical.
This latter is what’s achieved on Ngayon by Karl Evangelista’s Apura, a band featuring Andrew Cyrille (drums), Lisa Mezzacappa (bass), Rei Scampavia (piano), and Francis Wong (saxophone). The group plays as one led by Evangelista’s holy guitar, surging forward into the present, the ever-changing present. We weren’t lucky enough to catch the album release show at the Lab a couple weeks back, but we hope some of you did. If not, there’s always the studio recording if you want to listen… now.
