Sold-Out Revelry With Balkan Brass Monsters Raya Brass Band at Symphony Space

There’s something refreshingly new and exciting happening in what might seem to be an unexpected space on the Upper West Side. This past evening, Raya Brass Band sold out Symphony Space, delivering a wickedly tight set that was just feral enough to seem like the six-piece Brooklyn Balkan collective were about to leave the rails at any second. They didn’t really do that until the end of the show, when they left the stage and went down into the crowd of dancers gathered at the front of the stage.

That’s right – dancers packing the floor at Symphony Space.

How did this neighborhood institution, best known for its annual classical music marathons and the NPR shows that tape there, suddenly get so cool? They’ve got a new series they call Revelry, where if you’re thirty or under, you can get in for twenty bucks – ten dollars less than older folks have to pay. Meanwhile, the downstairs bar stays open throughout the show and afterward. But you can get a drink at any club in town. What’s most exciting about this series is that Symphony Space is bringing in fresh talent that’s probably never played the Upper West Side before. They’ve imported some of the roster of bands from Barbes – Brooklyn’s best venue – and from other scenes as well.

Raya Brass Band packed Barbes back in January, but they always do that. It was dowmright inspiring to see them do the same in upper Manhattan in a space four or five times as big. Although they varied their tempos from funky to lickety-split, and their meters from a straight-up 4/4 to who knows what – some of these Balkan beats are impossible to count unless you have to play them – the show was more like one long jam with a thousand dynamic variations. There were a couple of Macedonian-style vamps where the group would shift back and forth between major and minor…an endlessly delicious series of sharp-fanged chromatic riffs…a klezmer-inflected number late in the set…and a final slinky, darkly glistening river of Ethiopian jazz after over an hour onstage.

Co-founder Greg Squared played the whole show on alto sax this time out, making it look effortless as he flickered between microtones, occasionally playing through an octave pedal for a spacy, techy effect. Trumpeter Ben Syversen didn’t spar with him as much as simply trading off long, goosebump-inducing volleys of chromatics – although he did a little jousting with accordionist Max Fass. Who is the band’s true anchor, providing rich washes of sound that were serendipitously up in the mix (sometimes the accordion gets lost at a place like Barbes) .

Nezih Antakli provided the boom on a big standup tapan drum, while fellow percussionist Kolja Gjoni played a standup kit: nobody could have asked for more cowbell. Tuba player Steven Duffy brought both slithery vintage Bootsy Collins basslines as well as pinpoint-precise oompah, and finally the kind of funny WAH-wah solo that every tuba player ends up having to take at some point.

The big takeaway here; if you live on the Upper West or points further north, Revelry at Symphony Space is the place to be on Thursdays nights. The next show is Oct 18 at 7:30 PM with the charming, female-fronted Avalon Jazz Band playing cosmopolitan European swing. And if you’re up for a shlep to Barbes, Greg Squared is playing there every Sunday night in October at 7 PM with a rotating cast of New York Balkan and Middle Eastern talent. Psychedelic Romany jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel plays there afterward at about 9:30 with his band.

New York Balkan Favorites Raya Brass Band Unveil Their Fiery, Eclectic New Album at Littlefield on Friday Night

Of all the fantastic Balkan bands in New York – the pioneering Zlatne Uste, the eclectic and erudite Slavic Soul Party, party monsters Tipsy Oxcart, the gorgeously artsy Sherita and others – Raya Brass Band have made a name for themselves as probably the most intense of the bunch. Their previous releases, Dancing on Roses, Dancing on Cinders in 2012 and then This Train Is Now in 2013 both ranked in the top echelon of the best albums lists here in each of those years. Their latest album, simply titled Raya, is their most accessible yet eclectic and dynamic collection of songs. It’s their London Calling, or Daydream Nation, or Kid A. They’re playing the album release show at one of their usual NYC haunts, Littlefield on November 13 at around 10. The similarly intense, considerably trippier West Philadelphia Orchestra opens the night at 9; cover is $15.

Raya Brass Band’s other albums have made to the web, as should this one once it’s offically out. As of today, the opening track, Unify, is already up at the group’s Bandcamp page, a swaying, strolling number driven by the slinkiest tuba player in existence, Don Godwin, as Greg Squared’s alto sax and Ben Syversen’s trumpet bubble and soar over the clickety-clack twin percussion of Nezih Antakli and Rich Stein. It’s a prime example of the band in high-spirited mode.

Dren Gajda is a lot more characteristic of the barbwire chromatics, tricky tempos and brooding ferocity of the rest of the band’s catalog, Greg Squared’s melismatically crystaline lines flying matter-of-factly over Matthew Fass’ droning accordion until Syversen joins the festivities and then the party really heats up. Sugar and Salt pairs bagpipe-like Greg Squared lines with Fass’ misterioso atmospherics as it gets going, then the horns hit a fanfare and then they’re off, through alternately hypnotic and wickedly catchy riffage.

Sunken Angels opens on a similarly suspenseful note, then hits an enigmatically animated, early 70s Isaac Hayes-style stoner soul groove with hints of Ethiopiques. That rustic, anciently otherworldly African ambience comes front and center in With Every Drop That Falls, Syversen’s pensive hooks punching through a gorgeously opaque horn/accordion chart, Greg Squared’s looming microtones taking it deep into Balkan noir after that.

Ivan’s Tune has more of a machinegunning Romanian Romany flavor, like a smaller scale, less frenetic Fanfare Ciocarlia. Bag of Nails blends a hypnotically syncopated, Macedonian-style beat, moody atmospherics and a long, anthemic minor-key drive upwards.to an unexpected salsa-flavored interlude. Of all the tracks here, the best one might be Mirage, with its minor-key edge, Fass’ hints of dub, Greg Squared’s aching alto solo and a menacingly fluttering twin-horn outro. Or it could be the album’s subtly sardonic concluding march, Club Mono. where Greg Squared twists and turns through some mind-warping guitar voicings with his sax. It’s been a lot of fun watching Raya Brass Band grow from a feral, haphazardly wild dancefloor jamband into this wickedly tight, stylistically shapeshifting, distinctively original unit. This release marks yet another amazing achievement by one of the half-dozen best bands in New York in any style of music.

One of the Year’s Best Twinbills: Sandaraa and Raya Brass Band at Littlefield

This year good things come in twos. Granted, in a city with a population considerably beyond the official figure of eight million, it shouldn’t be hard to put a couple of good bands back to back, but the show back on May 23 at Littlefield was amazing even by this blog’s lofty standards. Sandaraa opened. They might be the most improbable and also the most original supergroup in town. Frontwoman Zebunnisa Bangash – a star in her native Pakistan – jumpstarted the band when she invited Michael Winograd – a klezmer luminary and one of the world’s most exhilarating clarinetists – to collaborate. The rest is history. They didn’t have to look far to fill out the rest of the lineup. This one included violinist Eylem Basaldi, accordionist Patrick Farrell, Yoshie Fruchter doubling on guitar and oud and longtime Klezmatic Richie Barshay on drums. And their sound – a mind-bending, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes propulsive mashup of Pakistani, Balkan and klezmer melodies – was like nothing else that’s been staged anywhere in town this year.

The band typically took their time launching into a groove, with pensive intros from Fruchter (on the oud – a rare treat), Basaldi and Winograd, the latter nonchalantly spiraling down in a shower of chromatic sparks. Farrell did much the same later in the set. Bangash varied her dynamics depending on the song, sometimes with a wounded resonance that brought to mind Eva Salina, other times with a meticulously modulated, melismatic approach. Polyrhythms and counterrythms were everywhere. One number had a tender lullaby quality; another teased the undulating crowd with the hint of a galloping qawwali rhythm, but never went there quite all the way. And although not everything was in minor keys, most of the songs had an apprehensive undercurrent, notably one number that the band spun along like an Irish reel before Basaldi led them into more moody territory with a stark violin solo. They closed with what sounded like a recent Punjabi hit, but with purist, acoustic production values.

Raya Brass Band headlined. For the last few years, they’ve been one of the most explosive party bands in town, sort of a punk Balkan brass jamband. Their metamorphosis into a sensationally tight, even elegant dancefloor group was stunning to witness. Almost imperceptibly, they followed a steady upward trajectory and took the crowd along with them, gathered on the floor around them, as the music led to a fiery peak with an Ethiopian-tinged groove. Don Godwin, the slinkiest tuba player in town, got to launch that one with a bristling minor-key riff – who would have guessed? And it worked like a charm.

This time out, the bandleaders took their time and put a lot of space between their solos, rather than duking it out in a bloody-knuckles match like they used to do. But it’s not like the band has tamed their sound – they’ve just introduced another level of dynamics and suspense. Nezih Antakli’s machinegunning standup drum riffs had the drive of a runaway train, but a steady one; accordionist Matthew “Max” Fass waited til the end before firing off one of the most adrenalizing, rapidfire solos of the night: getting to watch his fast fingers and also Farrell’s on the same stage on the same night was very cool.

As the set went on, the rhythms grew from a cumbia and reggae-tinged bounce to trickier Serbian and Macedonian-style metrics. After playing the voice of reason to the sax’s close-to-the-edge wail for most of the night, Syversen finally set off some fireworks of his own, going off on a searing, microtone-spiced tangent that left the crowd at a loss for words. And as much as the solos, and the chops, and the grooves is what draws the crowds, what might be most impressive is that most of Raya Brass Band’s songs are originals. It’s impossible to distinguish their own songs from the Balkan sounds that have influenced them so deeply. Somebody put these guys on a plane to Guca, Serbia for the trumpet festival next year and watch them give the locals a run for their money.

Raya Brass Band on the Express Track

Balkan brass music is a lot different than brass music from, say, New Orleans or Vienna – it’s dark, slashing, vicious stuff. It’s also a competitive sport. As recently documented in the film Brasslands – whose amazing soundtrack Raya Brass Band contributes to, mightily -many of the best bands from across Eastern Europe polish their sizzling chops by battling it out with their neighbors. And while Raya Brass Band are not from Serbia or Macedonia but from Brooklyn, their latest album This Train Is Now is battle-ready. It’s a lot different from their first two albums, which, looking back, sound a lot more feral, almost punk in places. Which is not to say that the new album is slicker, or any less ferocious, only that the band chooses their spots to get completely unhinged: the music is lot more dynamic. The other difference is that all but two of the cuts on the new album are originals rather than Balkan or Romany classics. As brilliant as their previous one, Dancing on Roses, Dancing on Cinders was (it ranked in the top three albums of 2012 here last year), this is better. And that’s saying a lot. Alto saxophonist Greg Squared, trumpeter Ben Syversen, slinky virtuoso tuba player Don Godwin, accordionist Matthew Fass and standup tupan drummer EJ Fry showed off some great chops last time out; this is world-class.

Here, both horn players typically use Balkan chromatic scales more than they rely on microtones, saving those otherworldly sonics for when they really want to go for the jugular. Greg Squared’s Locks and Latches opens the album with a series of rapidfire doublestops, its funky trip-hop pulse lit up by a long, sinuous Syversen solo. Syversen’s big anthemic title track makes its way up from a biting, funky sway, spiced with a tightly clustering accordion solo. They work a lot of funky, suspenseful syncopation on the aptly tilted Riff Cloud, Syversen picking up from a broodingly insistent sax solo and then wailing upward.

Let the Crickets Decide, another Greg Squared tune, is arguably the album’s best track: there’s a whole lot going on here. Syversen bubbles evilly over an ominous low sax note, followed by a mysterious sax solo that eventually goes screaming with the bent notes and microtones…and then they sprint to the finish line. Tsamika Tarragona, by Godwin, alternates between warmly soulful and biting, with a brief carnivalesque interlude. Bump, by Syversen, is the album’s catchiest track, emphatically anchored by the accordion alongside Godwin’s unexpectedly nimble, tiptoeing pulse, Syversen taking a turn to swoop and weave through a mist of microtones.

Bloody Knuckles, by Greg Squared, is a cage match of sorts between the horns, locked in combat or exchanging lively riffage: the fun these guys are having is irresistible, through all kinds of intricate time changes to yet another long, killer Syversen solo. For Mia, by Fass, makes quite a contrast with its lullaby intro, building to a gorgeously creepy accordion solo that the horns pick up from there. There are two traditional tunes here: a brisk, bristling take of the Macedonian tune Shapkarevo Kasapsko Oro,  which manages to be just a little more polished than the tracks on the previous album; and the famous Roma Karsilama, with its animated call-and-response and aggressive trumpet solo. The album ends with Greg Squared’s Segan Sirto, which begins allusively and then hits its evil stride over Godwin’s slinky groove, the song’s writer taking the most exhilirating, dynamically-charged solo on the album: the way he weaves from smoky to crystalline will give you goosebumps. Is this the best album by a New York band in 2013? Maybe. Raya Brass Band’s next New York show is on Oct 12 at 9 PM at the Ukrainian National Home, 140 2nd Ave. off of 9th St.; cover is $15.

Raya Brass Band Kicks Off 2012 With an Explosive New Album

Stars of the Brooklyn Balkan underground, Raya Brass Band have an exhilarating, eclectic new album, Dancing on Roses, Dancing on Cinders just out. They’re playing the album release show this Saturday night, January 7 at Drom on what might be the year’s best bill with No BS Brass, Malian griot Cheick Hamala Diabate, Smokey Hormel’s soulful western swing band, and Chicha Libre, the Peruvian-style surf band who might be the only act in town who rival Raya Brass Band for sheer fun factor. If you’re here, you should go to this, it’s only ten bucks (they’re also at Golden Fest for considerably more on the 13th and 14th).

The album transcends both the Balkan and brass labels: what they play is otherworldly jams for people who like to dance. The tracks are programmed much like a typical Raya concert: a big, blazing, funky chromatic two-chord vamp to get the dancers spinning, a bunch of even more intense numbers, a little comic relief and finally another long, only slightly less blistering, more spacious theme to send everybody home in a good mood. Typically saxophonist/clarinetist Greg Squared and trumpeter Ben Syversen will blast through a song’s hook in tandem before taking off on a long solo or two while accordionist Matthew Fass adds texture and ambience, Don Godwin’s tuba lays down a fat, pulsing groove (no cheesy “blat” sounds here) and drummer EJ Fry rattles and booms and clicks, making it seem like 10/4 or 21/8 are the most effortlessly natural dance rhythms ever invented.

As you would expect from a gypsy band, the tunes are bracing and biting, ominous and sometimes verging on the macabre with the sax or trumpet blasting through long chromatic runs over wary minor chord changes. But not all the album is that scary. There’s the Cellphone Song, which seems to be an Eastern European-style parody of the singsongey quality of your typical factory ringtone; a bouncy, circuslike, buffoonish number; Sufijski Cocek, a spot-on, tongue-in-cheek side trip to Bollywood; and a happy, upbeat Greek dance that morphs into a trippy one-chord vamp that they take their time building, hypnotically.

But the best tracks here are the minor-key scorchers. The big crowd-pleaser is Hasapikos, a somewhat defiantly blithe march that they eventually take doublespeed, and then even faster. A smoldering anthem, Arkabarka has the closest thing to a rock melody here, Syversen following an offhandedly chilling, microtonal sax solo by bringing it a little lower and then adding wry textures with a mute before sprinting back to the stratosphere. The album’s lone quiet number, Melochrino, begins with a brooding sax taqsim and works its way to a memorably bitter crescendo. Tavernitsa, a tricky Greek-flavored dance by Syversen, sets Greg Squared’s effortlessly fluid, lighting-fast volleys against the trumpeter’s more deliberate, then counterintuitively explosive firepower. And some of the album’s most intense moments come during the Middle Eastern-tinged Cucek Na Sudahan, tense sustained passages alternating with unhinged ferocity. Greg Squared is a disciple of Ivo Papasov and deserves mention alongside the Bulgarian icon: his speed and command are so strong that he makes his solos look easy. Syversen has speed to match, and an eclectic style that draws on his experience playing noiserock (in his own group Cracked Vessel) and jazz improvisation. Only a week into the new year, and we already have a great album: if the rest of this year is only half as good as this, 2012 will still be amazing.