Balkan Beat Box
May 25 at 21:30 - AKC Metelkova mesto
Throughout history, the relationships between the nations that have settled the Balkan Peninsula have often been referred to as the ‘Balkan cauldron’ – and almost always with good reason. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, there is a city in which a much larger number of nations have lived in far greater harmony and in a much smaller area, thus earning the nickname of ‘the melting pot’. So Balkan Beat Box are the answer to the following hypothetical question: what would happen if Balkan fire were placed under the melting pot that is New York? Well, what you get is a music that is perfect in its madness (or madly perfect), the ultimate concert attraction and a fusion of musicians with vision. They clearly liberated their ears and their instruments some time ago, grinding and thrashing their way through synthesisers and samplers, guitars and trumpets, saxophones and clarinets, and handing the mic over to an array of Bulgarian folk singers or their dreamy, dubby, streetwise MC. Keeping the pot sizzling – and just preventing it from boiling over – are two veterans of the New York ‘off scene’, Tamir Muskat and Ori Kaplan, formerly of Gogol Bordello, who keep a tight rein on Balkan Beat Box while the latter gallop wildly from East to West, from Romania to Yemen, from the Balkans to North Africa, making several pop stops in between. It’s an unparalleled urban mix – in other words, it’s what globalisation should sound like.
Tamir Muskat, drums, laptop
Ori Kaplan, saxophone
Tomer Yosef, percussion, vocals, M.C.
Benjamin Hendler, bass.
Jeremiah Lockwood (Uri Kinrot in Zwolle), guitar
Eyal Talmudi, saxophone
Most recent album: Nu Med (Crammed Discs, 2007)
www.balkanbeatbox.com
Text by Boštjan Napotnik Napo
May 25 at 21:30 - AKC Metelkova mesto
Throughout history, the relationships between the nations that have settled the Balkan Peninsula have often been referred to as the ‘Balkan cauldron’ – and almost always with good reason. On the other side of the Atlantic, however, there is a city in which a much larger number of nations have lived in far greater harmony and in a much smaller area, thus earning the nickname of ‘the melting pot’. So Balkan Beat Box are the answer to the following hypothetical question: what would happen if Balkan fire were placed under the melting pot that is New York? Well, what you get is a music that is perfect in its madness (or madly perfect), the ultimate concert attraction and a fusion of musicians with vision. They clearly liberated their ears and their instruments some time ago, grinding and thrashing their way through synthesisers and samplers, guitars and trumpets, saxophones and clarinets, and handing the mic over to an array of Bulgarian folk singers or their dreamy, dubby, streetwise MC. Keeping the pot sizzling – and just preventing it from boiling over – are two veterans of the New York ‘off scene’, Tamir Muskat and Ori Kaplan, formerly of Gogol Bordello, who keep a tight rein on Balkan Beat Box while the latter gallop wildly from East to West, from Romania to Yemen, from the Balkans to North Africa, making several pop stops in between. It’s an unparalleled urban mix – in other words, it’s what globalisation should sound like.
Tamir Muskat, drums, laptop
Ori Kaplan, saxophone
Tomer Yosef, percussion, vocals, M.C.
Benjamin Hendler, bass.
Jeremiah Lockwood (Uri Kinrot in Zwolle), guitar
Eyal Talmudi, saxophone
Most recent album: Nu Med (Crammed Discs, 2007)
www.balkanbeatbox.com
Text by Boštjan Napotnik Napo
