Balkan Beat Box is FUN. Fun fun fun. If you wanna have fun - Join the Balkan Beat Box. Only thing is we probably won't except you. There's enough of us. But you can come to shows. There, I'm glad we figured that out.

It all started as a recording project, taking place at Tamir Muskat and Dani Shatzky's Vibromonk studios in Brooklyn, sometime in 2004.

The music is a combination of electronic and live playing with Balkan, Mediterranean, Middle astern, north african and Gypsy elements.

In food terms we are talking: Babaganush, olives, cuscus, kabab with lot of garlic, humus, israeli salad, lots of lemon and parsley and good olive oil.

I played Bass and Guitar, Ori Kaplan on woodwinds, Dana Leong on trombone and trumpet and Tamir on a chair in front of the computer screen.

Lot's of other musicians contributed to this project: The "Bulgarian Chicks" (Valda Tomova and Kristin Espeland) - came in to sing that heavenly female
traditional Bulgarian singing that I love.
The extraordinary Victoria Hanna came in to sing  and Rap in Aramaic (that very very old language) on "Adir Adirim". Shushan barked in Moroccan. Boom Pam,  contributed "Gross" featuring Uri Kinrot on Guitar- Greek style. Hassan Ben Jaffar, singer/santir player and a sweet sweet man with not much of a vocabulary. He likes to say: "everybody!"  "music!" "Morocco!" and "love!"...on the album you can hear him trying to say "Balkan Beat Box" with Ori and Tamir desperately trying to teach him...it's one of the funniest
things I ever heard. (and I heard some funny shit before). But once he opens his mouth to sing-
forgeda'bout it. Har'el Shachal came in to play the Zorna on "Hassan Mimuna". And finaly me mate, ma main man, ma boy, ma homey: Tomer Yosef - singing/raping, shifting from Hebrew to English and the other way around (!) on the fun yet political closing track of the album - "La Bush Resistance" Claiming in the hook that: "we're making Bush belly dancing with Afganistans".

Tomer is a time bomb, and it explodes once he hits the stage. But unlike in any other situation where a bomb explodes, in this case, you actually want to be around. Tomer, I love you and I love when you explodes. I don't see any contradiction here.

The BBB album came out in Israel (April 2005 Nana Disc Records) It is due to come out in Europe this Summer (2005, Essay Records) It will come out in  the US soon (J-Dub Records). We are and we will be playing live shows around the globe.

So we're not joking. This is some serious fun.
Look out.

www.balkanbeatbox.com