Califone + Kiran Leonard

About

Baba Yaga's Hut Presents: Califone + Kiran Leonard at Rich Mix, May 28th. Califone is an acclaimed musical project centered around Tim Rutili and a regular and rotating list of contributors. Formed out of the Chicago band Red Red Meat, they've been exploring the tension between experimental noise, acoustic texture, technology, humanity, cinematic images and microscopic poetry since 1998 with over a dozen albums of sleeper hits and enduring classics. \-- Kiran Leonard's unique and ambitious body of work spans more than a decade of frenetic noise rock, ornate avant-folk, DIY no-fi, and everything in between. First becoming known as a teenager for his unpredictable and home-recorded chamber-prog epics such as "Bowler Hat Soup" (2013) and "Grapefruit" (2016), his more recent work has crystallised a vast aesthetic scope into a focused and singular voice, placing a greater emphasis on the directness of song and stream-of-consciousness poetics. 2024's "Real Home" brings a newfound streak of candid and clear-cut melodicism to the elaborate, formalist qualities of his writing and arranging. Completed after half a decade of songs without choruses, the album is the culmination of years operating in the UK's independent and experimental music circuits as one of its best-kept secrets.