Frippism's Spectacular Middle Eastern Blog Zone

hm yeah I'm yet to listen to the second album, but listening to the third I can't say I hear much progression, though the tracks are at times more upbeat than anything on "Carheart". I still enjoyed it, I have to give it more listens.

PLUS they're building a freaking Star-Trek Theme Park in Aqaba (apparently the king even made a cameo appearance sometime in the 60s), so yeah... Any scuba diving Trekkies?

Welcome to the forum, sort of!

I haven't posted a new band for almost a week because I'm gonna do a big post now featuring two very lovely bands who performed a show yesterday the 27th in the OzenBar- the venue that is owned by Tel Aviv's (possibly best) CD store- The Third Ear (Ozen is ear in Hebrew so that's why the venue's called what it's called).

The first band is undoubtedly the coolest Israeli band today and possibly ever: Kruzenshtern & Parohod!!!!

Look at their beautiful faces!!!!

They are what could be called... Klezmer-hardcore-death-jazz-oriental rock. f**k yeah. Every time they have a show is a sign for mass celebration (the mass being about 50 people...) to rejoice with wonderful experimental music and compliment each other on their T-shirts of some obscure band ("Residents T-Shirt, right on man! *epic freeze frame high five*). They have one of the weirdest most entertaining and hilarious shows around. The band's bassist and main composer Igor Krutogolov (the one on the left) plays like a drunk Russian 5,000 year old dragon being released from its cage.

Observe some epic faces from yesterday's show (sorry for the crappy quality the camera sucks and I'm a terribly photographer):

Epic faces observed? Good!

The band hasn't released any new album since 2004's "Songs" (which is very recommended if you like being a good person), but the band has plenty of new material which it's currently playing in shows. As good as the early first two albums are, the new material sounds GODLY. A lot of the new stuff features much heavier blast beats and funky klezmer and there's not one song where I explode from laughter just from the sheer joyous weirdness. There's one part in the show where Igor rocked too hard (and was probably somewhat drunk) and he just sorta tripped backwards into the crowd (your's truly almost got a bass to the face), and continued playing from the crowd. Eventually when the band went into this weird improv he went into the middle of the crowd, and played this simple groove just over and over. I would've taken a pic but the flash would've completely ruined the epicness. Eventually he just started singing (like he always does) in this eccentric gibberish. It was so hilarious yet so powerful. One of the most memorable moments I had from any gig.

Overall K&P did what they always do. BE. f**kING. AWESOME. Every time they play a show I get excited. 

And now some snippets of them (just for you <3) from youtube. Honestly they don't really do justice to how good this gig was, but they're still awesome vids:

This last one is a great quality vid of their joint show with French avant-freak-math-folk rock duo Vialka. That was truly one of the best gigs ever!!!

Enjoy K&P!! Hopefully if you're ever in Israel you'll check them out.

Yeah I though to split up the posts on the two bands just for it to be less clunky.

Second band! One that has made a comeback in my music library to become one of the top played in the last few months. I'm talking of the Czech Uz Jsme Doma!!!! 

This band's been around for 27 years. Started to play While the Czech Republic was still Czechoslovakia and the Communist regime banned most rock bands, and so they played many secret shows until the fall of Eastern European Communism. They are I guess in essence a punk band with many freaky proggy elements. The also have these awesome Gregorian chanting style vocals at many places and it's always a treat. I think this is their first time in Israel, and with addition to the Tel Aviv show they're also playing in Haifa and Jerusalem (shows unfortunately I probably won't make considering there's no public transportation in most Israeli cities during the Shabbat... Damn). I was really excited about this show and even the late time couldn't dumb down my expectations.

The band started out with one of the songs from their 2010 album "Caves" (I'm not gonna use the Czech names just because I can hardly remember how to pronounce their first name), and with the first song the crowd all of a sudden became half-Czech and I was hearing Czech all over the place. Honestly there's something very Czech in Uz Jsme Doma that makes me also curious about the Czech culture as well as the music. 

The sound was a little off in the first songs but it really picked up after the 3rd songs. The guys looked like they were enjoying themselves! 

The guys played absolutely fabulous, particularly the drummer and the bassist, who were just on freaking fire. The band went through most of their songs off of "Caves", which really is a great album. They also did the "classic" (well sort of a classic) "Jassica", which more or less only me and my brother knew the actual melody to from the crowd and sang along. Come to think about it I think me and my brother were the only ones who knew anything about Uz Jsme Doma it seems from the crowd, even the Czech crowd didn't seem to go "wooooooooooooh" when some kind of well known song was played. 

By the time show was over I was extremely pleased with the whole night and considering the late time I was also tired as hell. I went over to Miloslav Wanek (the singer and guitarist) thanked him for an awesome show, shaked his incredibly sweaty hand (wow... I didn't know a person was capable of sweating so much) and went off my way home. 

Check out some Uz Jsme Doma:

It was a wonderful night and I want to thank both bands for being nice people and awesome musicians. The progressive scene is alive and well :).

Bye and stuff.

So I didn't post this week at all honestly because I was actually thinking whether or not I should share this group. But f**k it I'm doing it! 

In my epic quest to find hip-hop I can enjoy, this one group has shown it's beautiful face to me: them call "Death Grips"!!

Quite honestly some of the strangest most awesome sh*t I've come across in a while! I'm legitimately very excited to listen to this thing over and over and over again!!!! The only one group member whose name is actually said is drummer is Zach Hill (who you might now if you're into spazz-core style stuff. He was in bands like Hella and other insane ohzphzdpojhazdpgadf math rock. It's not easy stuff at all but some of it is worth checking out). There aren't really any drums on this record though, so I guess Zach was just producing or arranging what is essentially a mix-tape. 

The group is displays a demented, dark style, spastic, crazy style of hip-hop. The rapper more or less screams the lyrics the whole way through. When I first heard him scream "I AM THE BEAST I WORSHIP" in the first song "Beware" (which by the way, starts with a sample of Charles Manson) I knew I finally found hip-hop that I can not only like and respect, but really love and delve myself into. There are many insane samples on this, like Arthur Brown's "Fire", or Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine", or Black Flag samples and stuff like that. The beats are always these incredibly intense, dense, glitchy, grooves which make you move in the most messed up ways (ever danced the "crack-addict-waffle"? I think it's time you learned the moves).