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Pitt News, Feature >>
"World music" is probably the worst name of any genre of music.
The world is a pretty big place, after all. To call something "world music" doesn't do a whole lot to define it, as there as many musical styles in the world as there are cultures. This moniker is only occasionally appropriate. And one of those rare cases is found in Nu Med. the sophomore album by Balkan Beat Box.
The album is a mash-up of music from every conceivable corner of the globe. Egyptian, Mediterranean, Hasidic and Ar abic influences are all over the place, all filtered through the member's home base of New York and fleshed out with hip-hop beats. It makes the music sound just as turbulent as the actual Balkan Peninsula.
Song tides are in at least three different languages. Most of the songs are almost completely instrumental, and the few times that vocals do show up, they're
rarely in English. But that doesn't make the music any less accessible. Many of the hooks are instantly catchy, some to such a degree that you may have trouble sleeping because they are constantly ring ing in your head.
The album's strongest tracks are front-loaded near the beginning. After a short intro featuring crowd noise, the band be ing introduced and not much else, Balkan Beat Box launches into "Hermetieo," which is as musically tight as its name sake is airtight.
MC Tomer Yosef raps one verse in English and the next in a different lan guage. Swaying saxophones carry one interlude, while an immaculately clean guitar takes over in the next. Eventually the two join forces to close out the song in excellent fashion.
The best song on the album comes next in "Habibi Min Zaman." It's bolstered by a steady, unspectacular beat and dubby bass, with the guitars and saxophones again taking center stage. The coup de grace, however, is Egyptian guest-vocai-ist Dunia, who raps in Arabic and punc tuates her performance with distorted and Straight outta Md-
echoed hoots and hollers. Even though you have no idea what she's saying, the melody is so transcendently catchy that you'll probably find yourself singing along.
If this album ever produced a single (unlikely), it would be "Digital Monkey." It's the only song that is completely in English, and features a more traditional beat accentuated by electronic flourishes. Yosef raps that "I come from Middle East but don't belong to no country," further solidifying the band's apparent distaste for any sort of borders, political or musical.
A good majority of the songs from here on out are almost entirely instrumental, so the catchiness factor suffers a bit, but the music is mostly still solid. "Ballcasio" features accordion and violin that sounds as if it's being played with a chainsaw, and is one of the highlights of the mid dle stretch of the album. "Quand Est-Ce Qu'on Arrive" proves that absolutely no language will be left untouched here, and is one of the more electronic-oriented ef forts.
Nu Med is probably a little too ambi tious for its own good, going on two or three tracks more than necessary. By the time "Mexico City" rolls around, which sounds a lot like you would expect it to by the title, the constant shifts in style have become a little disorienting.
Although there's a little dead weight here, Nu Med is still quite strong and fea tures many styles of music that you won't hear anywhere else.
05/02/07
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