Collide

Album Review

Beats Antique came together to make music for Miles Copeland's Bellydance Superstars extravaganzas. On Collide they expand their palette beyond the obvious sounds of Middle Eastern grooves to incorporate Balkan wedding music, flamenco, French Gypsy jazz, hip-hop, and dub reggae into their dark entrancing soundscapes. The measured funk of "Beauty Beats" opens the set with a catchy melodic hook played on the saz (Turkish lute) by David Satori, complemented by Sidecar Tommy's dark cello and a flurry of hand drums. "Dope Crunk" adds hip-hop and bent electro beats to the mix. The melody is picked up by a sax and clarinet that float over and around clay drums and computer percussion effects. "Sweet Demure" is a quiet desert tango marked by long sustained notes played on accordion and the subtle squawking of electro percussion. "Roustabout" sounds like Balkan circus hip-hop played by a reggae band; "Caterpillar" is a 9/8 groove borrowed from Romanian wedding music mixed with the rhythms of flamenco handclapping, French Gypsy jazz violin, and keyboard bass; while "Milieu" features a flurry of percussion played over a dark ambient drone accented by the tinkling of a toy piano. On two tracks, the horn section of the San Francisco Bay Area Balkan band Brass Menazeri adds uncontained mayhem to the mix. "Nesatovo" opens with the brass in full flight, riding an Arab hip-hop beat and backed by a fat thumping reggae bassline. On the Balkan hip-hop jazz of "Borino," a trumpet leads the charge as Menazeri's horns clash with a booming electro bassline and spacy dub percussion. ~ j. poet, Rovi