Recorded live in Paris at the Olympic Cafe in 2008, Kor is an album of shared improvisations by French contrabassist
Joëlle Léandre and Hungarian multi-instrumentalist
Akosh S. who has chosen to abbreviate his surname
Szelevényi. Their previous duo album,
Györ was released in 2003.
Akosh S. is a formidably versatile instrumentalist who juggles bass clarinet, metal clarinet, soprano and tenor saxophones, flutes and bells throughout the seven episodes that make up
Kor. Born in Debrecen, Hungary in 1966, he relocated to Paris in 1986 and has recorded with his own
Akosh S. Unit, as well as with countryman and free improviser
Kovács Ákos, professionally known as
Ákos. All of this adds up to an international conspiracy of free improvisers, with
Léandre occupying a position somewhere near the epicenter along with people like
William Parker,
Anthony Braxton, and
Terje Rypdal. Speculation as the to the meaning of the word "Kor" would need to take in the possibilities that
Léandre is referring to a river in Iran, a bed owned by Hel, that chthonic goddess from Norse mythology, or Komitet Obrony Robotnikov, a certain Polish labor organization. In a purely anarcho-poetic sense, the idea that all three answers are simultaneously correct is not entirely out of the question, for minds like these can and do work in mysterious ways.