Features
Beat Of The Balkans
The group is touring its way across Europe and the U.S. this summer, with stops including Switzerland’s Paleo Festival and Pennsylvania’s Johnstown FolkFest. The band will launch a U.S. club tour in September, hitting Chicago, Minneapolis, Brooklyn and more.
Balkan Beat Box is the brainchild of two veteran NYC musicians, Tamir Muskat and Ori Kaplan, who have their roots in groups including Gogol Bordello and Firewater. For the group’s debut album, the pair recruited MC/percussionist Tomer Yosef, bassist Itamar Ziegler, saxophonists Eyal Talmudi and Peter Hess, trombonist Dana Leong, guitarist/saxophonist Uri Kinrot, guitarist/vocalist Jeremiah Loockwood and bassist Ben Handler, as well as video artists Billy Levy and Alma Harel.
The disc is out now on JDub Records, the label that brought you Matisyahu, as well as Essay Records in Europe and Nana Disc in Israel.
The collective describes its live shows as a multi-discipline, “semi-circus” event, lasting two to three hours and incorporating the work of local artists in each city.