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Concert Pick
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Express, Concert Pick >>
-by Christopher Porter
Zion Lions
BALKAN BEAT BOX's primaries — saxophonist Ori Kaplan, knob twiddler Tamir Muskat and rapper/percussionist Tomer Yosef — originally hail from Tel Aviv, but the New York City band has a global sound.
The group's latest CD, "Nu Med," features rappers from Syria and Palestine, a clarinetist from Macedonia and singers from Bulgaria, Israel and Morocco, but the whole recording is steeped in studio techniques that were popularized in Jamaican music. "The dub aesthetic influenced us a lot," said Kaplan. "The Zion train goes from Kingston to Tel Aviv."
Despite the hodgepodge of influences, Balkan Beat Box's mélange sounds organic. "There's nothing forced here; it's actually very natural for us," Kaplan said. "It's a coherent style — the BBB style."
The klezmer, Gypsy and Middle Eastern sounds that the band members grew up with provide the soul of Balkan Beat Box, but modern music is its ever-thumping heart. "We wanted real modern hip-hop and dancehall beats and ancient folk artists together, and then take it outside of that world music context and put it into more of a club, dancehall, punk style," Kaplan said. "But we direct the music to our own region. We take it back to what our ears were listening to when we were born."
Like Gypsy punks Gogol Bordello, with whom Kaplan and Muskat have worked, Balkan Beat Box's high-energy music is best experienced live.
"They're pretty wild," Kaplan said of BBB's concerts. "Expect to be sweating. Drink a lot and jump around. It's a frantic party. We tear it up for two hours. Six people sound like 12 people in BBB."
» Rosslyn Spectrum Theater, 1611 North Kent St., Arlington; Thu., 8 p.m., $20; 703-276-6701. (Rosslyn) 04/19/07 >> go there
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