Azita Returns with 'Disturbing the Air'

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Jul 18, 2011

Though Azita Youseffi popped up over 20 years ago with no-wave noise mongers the Scissor Girls, the Chicago artist's solo work as simply Azita has been marked with more timid, reflective moments. Continuing on with her sparseness, the performer has announced her next LP for iconic imprint Drag City, titled Disturbing the Air.

The follow-up to 2009's How Will You?, which we called a "spooky kind of pop record" that meshed jazz with Beatles and Patti Smith-styled arrangements, her latest further refines her minimalist approach. A press release explains that Youseffi relies on no more than her voice and a piano for her new song cycle, stating that the artist's "goal was to embody an almost unbearable emptiness." The statement goes on to say that Disturbing the Air's "music and lyrics are rich and wild at times, a mere whisper at others." 

"We are presented with a somewhat emotionally apocalyptic reality, in which someone struggles to make sense of things, but cannot," frequent collaborator Brian Torrey Scott said in a statement. "The very heart of this work finds its articulation in an inability to define."

Disturbing the Air is set for a September 20 release.

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