I first encountered Ennio Morricone’s “Algeri: 1 Novembre 1954” on John Zorn’s 1986 tribute album The Big Gundown. The terrifyingly insistent theme has haunted me ever since.
As part of my self-directed study in the history of the Arab diaspora, I recently watched the excruciatingly intense 1966 Italian film The Battle of Algiers. I leapt from a couch upon discovering Morricone’s doom-laden composition in its original context.
The tone of Morricone’s agitated score echoes in Archaisms II. Recorded live at Roulette last year, the album captures a quintet led by Adam Rudolph and Tyshawn Sorey in pursuance of an elevated consciousness that seems aligned with violent uprisings.