Luminescent Orchestrii, Los Lantzmun & Fishtank Ensemble
KGNU 88.5 FM | 1390 AM picks
The sounds of Luminescent Orchestrii range from Romanian Gypsy melodies, punk-inspired frenzy, salty tangos, hard-rocking klezmer, haunting Balkan harmony, hip hop beats, and Appalachian fiddle, all eaten and spit out by two violins, resophonic guitar, bullhorn harmonica, and bass. The members of the Orchestrii come from different scenes in New York City yet come together through their love of Balkan and Gypsy music. Sxip Shirey is an international circus composer, Sarah Alden is an old-time fiddle player, Rima Fand is an experimental theater composer and Benjy Fox-Rosen is a free-jazz bassist.
The band formed in 2002 as a quintet, and since that time, they have toured the East Coast of the U.S., England, Scotland, and Germany, as well as traveled to Romania, Macedonia, Turkey, and Serbia for inspiration. They’ve performed at international festivals from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (UK), to The Blue Note (Germany) and The Lake Eden Arts Festival (USA).
Los Lantzmun describes their music as Jewish World Fusion, with songs derived from Eastern European, Sephardi, and Middle Eastern sources, performed in a contemporary style with a driving percussive backbeat. They sing in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), performing a fusion of material reflecting Jewish culture and history, from joyous klezmer tunes to haunting Spanish ballads and rhythmic Israeli and Yemenite melodies. The name, Los Lantzmun, is derived from a Yiddish word meaning “someone from your town,” or “kinsman.”
Fishtank Ensemble is a band that offers a unique blend of Gypsy, Balkan, flamenco, klezmer and original tunes. With surprising arrangements and an assortment of tools and flavors: violin, accordion, gypsy jazz guitar, shamisen, bass, saw, voice and more, they evoke the spirit of a past age with the sounds of tomorrow.
A series of chance occurrences caused the members of what would become Fishtank Ensemble to meet in an Oakland performance space called “The Fishtank” in the spring of 2005. The band formed around their star fiddler, Fabrice Martinez. Originally from France, he has spent the last seven years traveling around Europe in a mule-drawn caravan learning and playing folk music with the ensemble Croque Mule. Much of that time was spent living in Romania, often in Romani (Gypsy) villages.
Three weeks into their formation, they recorded their debut album, Super Raoul (“raoul” is a gypsy slang term for “cool”). The album was recorded live at “The Fishtank” and at The Cayuga Vault in Santa Cruz, and it showcases the band’s diverse range of styles and influences. After a successful first tour that took them up and down the West Coast of the U.S. from Freight and Salvage in Berkeley to The Fiddlehaus in Seattle, the two band members who lived in Europe agreed to relocate to the States to focus on establishing the band as a unique force in the folk and world music scenes.
