Ava Mendoza is an American, Brooklyn-based guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer, the leader of the experimental rock band Unnatural Ways, who has collaborated with Carla Bozulich, Fred Frith, James Brandon Lewis, William Parker, Mike Watt, Nels Cline, John Zorn, and Negativland. She is a member of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, Nate Wooley’s Columbia Icefield, and a trio with violinist gabby fluke-mogul and drummer Carolina Pérez.
Alive Alone, Alive Together captures the nomadic Mendoza playing live at Summer Bummer Festival in Antwerp, at Audio For The Arts in Madison, Wisconsin, at Catalytic Sound Festival at Hungry Brain in Chicago, and at FLUX Festival at PARC in Firenze, playing solo or in a duo with master drummer Hamid Drake. The album offers eight pieces, including radically transformed versions of pieces from her solo albums New Spells (Relative Pitch/Astral Spirits, 2021) and The Circular Train (Palilalia, 2024). The album was mixed by electronic musician Submerged (aka Kurt Gluck) to give it a powerful psychedelic edge.
Mendoza has her own uncompromising and raw, bluesy, effects-laden, and distorted guitar sound, contrasted by her soulful, emotionally charged, and more vulnerable vocal delivery, often processed by effects. These performances capture Mendoza in top form, with her charismatic and commanding stage presence, totally possessed by the urgent power of a live performance. Drake, as always, is a perfect partner, supportive and in the service of the music, with his clever rhythmic phrasing, his sense of time, and the way he liberates Mendoza to improvise and push harder and deeper.
The centerpiece is the intense and deeply emotional song, «Dust From the Mines» (originally from The Circular Train), which relates to Mendoza’s family roots in the mines of Bolivia, suggesting a bold feminist perspective. The last, instrumental piece, «New Ghosts» (originally from New Spells), sounds as if it is channeling an Ayler-ian gospelish spell into a powerful, uplifting plea to exorcise today’s evil spirits.
Eyal Hareuveni
Ava Mendoza (guitar, vocals), Hamid Drake (drums, vocals)
