As the World Churns

photo: Doran Gild

TriBeCaStan | New Songs From the Old Country (Evergreene)

TriBeCaStan is a New York collective whose a core members include multi-instrumentalists John Kruth and Jeff Greene, baritone sax queen Claire Daly, and the KlezmaticsÕ super-duper multi-reeds squealer Matt Darriau. As can be grokked by their name, the world-eclectica combo serves up ethnological forgeries / hybrids that draw from the sonic styles and trads of just about the entire world, the idea being that theyÕll play nothing that sounds ÒauthenticÓ per se but which is ideally something new that bubbled up outta the stew. ItÕs not a novel conceit ÐÐ it doesn't have to be ÐÐ and in TriBeCaStanÕs case the myriad musics are cheerfully corrupted and played with such primo musical choppery and smarts that one might even say that their refusal to pay proper ÒrespectÓ to their ethnic source materials is admirably progressive, politicalwise. Gently pulling or yanking rudely the time-honored modes and instrumentations out of their original context in tunes like ÒNight Train to the Ukraine,Ó ÒThe Road To KoprivnicaÓ and ÒKecapi Rain,Ó this band doesnÕt apologize for what used to be too easily referred to as cultural tourism. ItÕs as if theyÕre saying that in fact weÕre all cultural tourists now; depending on your point of view, weÕre all ÒexoticÓ now, too. This was at least one valuable lesson taught us by BrazilÕs tropicalistas of the Ô60s and Ô70s, these devourers of foreign cultural goods who proudly proclaimed that they ÒcannibalizedÓ American and English pop music precisely in order to color it with their own culturally biased aesthetics ÐÐ to create a new, entirely unholy mess of music. A minor quibble about TriBeCaStan is re the pastiching effect they get when they tackle tunes with titles like ÒCorned Beef and Sake,Ó which sounds like Irish music played on shamisen and not a lot more; meanwhile ÒCommunist ModernÓ is a new wave surfinÕ and spyinÕ typa vibe; the kicking, strutting rhythms and melodies of ÒDance of the Terrible BearÓ seem to derive from klezmer but bleed into country hoedown territory, which is cool and interesting since both forms are already big weird stews of sound that, should one care to spend the time doing so, might possibly prove to have some sort of cultural connection ÐÐ as does just about every single other note that TriBeCaStan plays.
ÐÐ John Payne