Balkan music is dance music. Digital music is dance music. Combine the 2 and also you’ve received a double-dose of upbeat and body-moving rhythms, though their mating isn’t one thing that’s a part of on a regular basis musical fare. Even digging into essentially the most obscure, left of the dial sources gained’t reveal that hybrid on the common. But there are some indie and outsider musicians experimenting with these sounds, curious and artful creators digging round their very own musical laboratories desperate to meld the 2 to make one thing contemporary.
Enter Will Magid, the person behind the band Balkan Bump, fusing digital beats with conventional music of the Balkans and Southeast Europe, making a horn-heavy and break-beat hybrid.
Balkan Bump will carry out Wednesday at Animas Metropolis Theatre.
Magid’s curiosity in Balkan music stems from Jap European ancestry and learning music in his ancestral homeland.
“I received the chance to review music in Northern Macedonia with the Kocani Orkestar, and simply actually received the itch,” he stated. “I used to be obsessive about the end result of virtuosity, you understand a number of the most delicate and troublesome factor to play on devices, but additionally danceability and emotion. It’s uncommon to listen to music that’s so sophisticated but so emotional and danceable on the identical time.”
Put up musical research, he ended up again within the States, enjoying in bands specializing in Balkan music, whereas additionally pursuing digital music manufacturing. When he combined the 2, folks in excessive locations paid consideration.
WHAT: Balkan Bump, Ethno and MAH ZE TAR.
WHEN: 7 p.m. (doorways) Wednesday.
WHERE: Animas Metropolis Theatre, 128 E. Faculty Drive.
TICKETS: $25. Obtainable on-line at https://bit.ly/3D937Py.
MORE INFORMATION: Go to www.animascitytheatre.com.
“I assumed it might be actually enjoyable if I simply put a few of this Balkan brass rhythm and melodies to a entice beat, or an actual exhausting hip-hop beat. And I did that as type of an experiment, and I threw it up on YouTube and received a bunch of traction,” Magid stated. “It ended up resulting in Gramatik, one in every of my idols in music manufacturing, signing the venture to his label. So, it was an unexpectedly, pun supposed, huge bump within the venture. It was particularly candy as a result of Gramatik is from the Balkans, in order that music is de facto near him, so it was actually cool having his help on this venture from the start.”
For this tour, Balkan Bump is a trio, with Magid, who performs trumpet whereas additionally dealing with the digital music duties, joined by Morgan “Mayvn” Nilsen on clarinet and Maz “Mah Ze Tar” Karandish on the oud, sitar and nay, which is a Persian flute. Its an brisk set meant to problem listeners whereas additionally protecting them on their toes.
“In a given set, I actually wish to hit a variety of completely different type of vitality and feelings. There will likely be jubilant dancing and meditative moments, too,” Magid stated. “We would do a extremely foolish track in some unspecified time in the future, too, like a canopy everybody is aware of however we’ll flip it in a extremely completely different approach, and we’ll go to an aggressive dubstep track for a second simply to check the waters there. It’s actually dynamic.”
With all three members of this model of Balkan Bump being ethnomusicologists, there’s an academic side to the present as properly. That is nontraditional music performed at occasions on devices not recurrently seen on levels in American venues, and the band hopes audiences might draw back having discovered one thing.
“All three of us have backgrounds in ethnomusicology, all of us studied that as our majors in school. So a part of our mission, each time we step on stage is to point out some issues perhaps folks haven’t seen earlier than, and have folks stroll away with a little bit of musical historical past even when they aren’t completely conscious of it,” Magid stated. “They could see these devices, and our hope is for folks to observe up and say, ‘what was that instrument, the place can I be taught extra about this?’”
Bryant Liggett is a contract author and KDUR station supervisor. Attain him at [email protected]