On stage, Yemen Blues have a manic energy. On the left side of the stage, Hilla Epstein and Galia Hai play cello and viola, adding stability to a cacophonous sound. On the right side, the horn section of Avi Lebovich, Itamar Borochov and Hadar Noiberg add funk-styled horn blasts and occasional backup vocals. In the back, Rony Iwyrn and Yohai Cohen play percussion. And center stage, Omer Avital and band leader Ravid Kahalani go completely insane.
Avital plays bass and mugs like a glam metal guy in the 1980s, rocking big shades and a bigger Jewfro. Kahalani, wearing what I think might be a woman’s pantsuit, and a silver chain, runs around the stage, beats on a metal box, and sings like a Yemenite chazzan on tiger blood. His vocals, nasal and piercing, are the most traditional part of the sound. They ride the percussion, which overdrives like an 808 drum machine, with the flow of someone who understands African music. It’s a powerful sound, like funk without the guitar, like Yemenite music gone electrocuted, like Israeli pop gone hardcore. I went backstage before the show to interview Kahalani.
Max Elstein Keisler: How did Yemen Blues begin?
Ravid Kahalani: It all began three years ago when I met Omer Avital. I was amazed by his arrangements, and way of working, we started jamming, and just dived in to the music. We started to think about what instruments to bring in. We didn’t want to bring in harmonic instruments so we could play Arab microtones. It was a really natural, organic process. I came with my vision, I bring the music and the lyrics, Omer brings the orchestration and the musical directing
MEK: You don’t use Western harmonies?
RK: We use classical influence, the cello and the viola are coming from a classical background, Omer is coming from a jazz background.
MEK: But you don’t use chord progressions?
RK: I have no rules. The first song I wrote was influenced by West African melodies. I can do one song which is more west african, I can do one which is more funk. I grew up on Yemenite music.
I was taught by my father lots of Yemenite chants, and how to sing the prayers, I left it all and went to american blues, to funk, to soul music, blues. I understand with the process of Yemen blues, blues is a very deep word, its not just American blues, its something from Africa, it came from Mali.
There is Yemenite blues, there is Mauritanian blues for me, I see blues as soul singing, the same thing as Yemenite guys singing chants, and Afro-american guys from Mississippi singing the blues
MEK: Word.
There were some questions I meant to ask him that I didn’t. Why aren’t your jeans skinny? How do you write songs without a guitar or piano? It’s probably a good thing I didn’t ask the first one. Although seriously, how do you have nine people in a band and none of them are rocking skinnies? But that’s not the point. Yemen Blues are a dope live band, willing to go IN in a way hipsters and college kids aren’t. And I saw them in a theater, in an audience whose demographics skewed toward the balding. Normally they play festivals.
They’re definitely on the come-up. Once they get a label and a US release of their album, I could see them blowing up. Bands like Gogol Bordello and Balkan Beatbox set a precedent, although Yemen Blues is less poppy than Gogol Bordello, and doesn’t have the electronic elements of Balkan Beatbox, for now. At the very least they’ll play more dope shows. They’ve already played the Montreal Jazz Fest and WOMEX, which is impressive for a band that’s only been touring a year. Kahalani has plans for the music too. “I want to try to get to Sly Stone.” he told me. “Get him to sing on my songs.” Sly pretty much invented tripped out funk with There’s A Riot Going On, but hasn’t made an album since the early 1980s. He’s a weird choice for a collaboration, considering how forgotten he is in the US. But Kahalani’s into roots.
(Yemen Blues performed in Boston at the Somerville Theater on March 10)
