Kristo’s music is literary and lyrical. He combines a modern singer-songwriter tradition with a folkloric and lyrical heritage from his native Macedonia—all infused, backed by an acclaimed ensemble of musicians, with playful and moody influences from Bossa Nova and Avant-Pop, to Experimental Rock and Free Jazz improvisation. But the intention and invention is all Kristo’s own—a unique voice that feels at once timeless and modern, tender and fierce, intimate and audacious. Bitter Almonds is the second album of Kristo’s Apoptosis trilogy. In the song cycle of the trilogy, Kristo constructs an intricate personal mythology—populated by strangers, lovers, and legendary figures from Balkan and Byzantine history and storytelling—around themes of love and loss, sex and death. In a landscape of memory that does downtown New York, swings through a half-imagined American South, and reaches back to the folks and songs of a shared Old Country. The ten tracks of Bitter Almonds are love songs of a different kind. Each song is a glimpse into a turning point in someone’s life: a rediscovery at a suicidal motel; a Byzantine battle; an unsent letter; a moment of time travel on The Bowery. Each song unfolds from a kernel of truth—overheard, collected, misremembered, and reimagined by Kristo—building a catalog of near-misses... more Kristo Rodzevski: vocals, acoustic guitar Mary Halvorson: electric guitar Taylor Ho Bynum: cornet Chris Speed: tenor saxophone Tomeka Reid: cello Michael Blanco: