Band history
Fishtank Ensemble first formed and performed together at The Fishtank in Oakland, California in January 2004. They are one of many bands to be commonly associated with the California-based eclectic indie band Estradasphere. The band's premiere performances were recorded live. These recordings would become the band's debut full-length CD, Super Raoul , which was released November 2005.
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port city, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth most populated city in California, and the 45th largest city in the United States. With a population of 432,897 as of 2019, it serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port in the San Francisco Bay, the entirety of Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854, which officially made Oakland a city. Oakland is a charter city.
California is a state in the Pacific Region of the United States. With 39.6 million residents across a total area of about 163,696 square miles (423,970 km2), California is the most populous U.S. state and the third-largest by area. The state capital is Sacramento. The Greater Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nation's second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, with 18.7 million and 9.7 million residents respectively. Los Angeles is California's most populous city, and the country's second-most populous, after New York City. California also has the nation's most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The City and County of San Francisco is both the country's second-most densely populated major city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs.
Estradasphere was an experimental band that originated in Santa Cruz, California, during the late 1990s. The band, which in its last incarnation was based in Seattle, consisted of six multi-instrumentalists from a variety of musical backgrounds trained in disciplines ranging from classical music and jazz to heavy metal.
In November 2007, Fishtank Ensemble self-released a second full-length album of material called Samurai Over Serbia . On Samurai Over Serbia, traditional eastern European, gypsy jazz, klezmer and original tunes are arranged to fit the ensemble’s unconventional, but imaginative sound.
Samurai Over Serbia is the second full-length album by Fishtank Ensemble. It was independently released by the band in 2007. Traditional eastern European, gypsy jazz, klezmer and original tunes are arranged to fit the ensemble’s unconventional, but imaginative sound. The groups sound is "consistently captivating, as if Gypsy swing continued to swirl around the world, picking up new inflections at every turn."
In recent years, the group has been performing consistently throughout the United States and Europe. [1]
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.
In 2010, the band released their 3rd full-length CD, Woman in Sin . Like the ones before this, it featured a unique and unusual blend of traditional and original music and was both self-produced and self-released.
Band bio
LA Weekly calls them "cross pollinated gypsy music ... one of the most thrilling young acts on the planet." Formed in 2005 and playing everywhere from the hippest LA clubs to festivals, cultural centers, museums, parades, and even on the street, the band includes two explosive violins, the world's best slap bass player, musical saw, flamenco and gypsy jazz guitar, trombone, opera, jazz and gypsy vocals, accordion and one little banjolele. Tackling everything from French hot jazz to wild Serbian and Transylvanian gypsy anthems, Flamenco, and oddball originals, the band is a not to be missed event for world music lovers.
LA Weekly is a free weekly alternative newspaper in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Jay Levin, who served as president and editor until 1991. Voice Media Group sold the paper in late 2017 to Semanal Media LLC.
The dynamic, virtuosic, fiery and peripatetic quartet that comprises Fishtank Ensemble take their roots both from their own varied musical and national backgrounds, as well as from their adventures and travels. The singer Ursula sang opera on the streets and town squares of Italy, until she found a love of gypsy music ... their French violinist voyaged around all of Europe in a handmade mule-drawn caravan for ten years, collecting music and experiences. Their Serbian bass player has spent time playing with gypsies as well as some of the rock and roll's legends, and aptly defends his reputation as the best slap bass player in the world ... and the guitarist is a master of flamenco and gypsy jazz guitar who honed his craft in the gypsy caves of Granada, Spain.
The shamisen or samisen (三味線), also sangen, is a three-stringed traditional Japanese musical instrument derived from the Chinese instrument sanxian. It is played with a plectrum called a bachi.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little instruments": bells, bicycle horns, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and various forms of percussion. The musicians wear costumes and face paint while performing. These characteristics combine to make the ensemble's performances both aural and visual. While playing in Europe in 1969, five hundred instruments were used.
Les Yeux Noirs is the name of a French band combining elements of jazz manouche and other Romani music, Yiddish and Klezmer music. The group was founded by two brothers, Eric and Olivier Slabiak, who both play violin. Other members of the band at its inception were: Franck Anastasio, Georghe Ene (Accordion), Pascal Rondeau (guitar), and François Perchat (cello). Later, Aidje Tafial (drums) and Marian Miu (cymbalom) were added, and Georghe Ene was replaced on the accordion by Constantin Bitica.
Radio Tarifa was a Spanish World music ensemble combining Flamenco, Arab-Andalusian music, Arabian music, Moorish music and also influences of the Mediterranean, of the Middle Ages and of the Caribbean. The name of the ensemble comes from an imaginary radio station in Tarifa, a small town in the southernmost Spanish province of Cadiz, Andalusia, the nearest part of Spain to Morocco. Instead of simply fusing musical styles as they currently exist, Radio Tarifa goes back in time to the common past of those styles, back to before 1492 when the Moors and Jews were exiled from Spain. This invented style sheds light upon the real styles of Spain, most notably flamenco although the band rejected all musical purism, preferring to mix arrangements of traditional compositions with their own melodies and combining instruments from Ancient Egypt, classical Greek and Roman times with modern saxophones and electric bass.
Monsieur Camembert is a five-piece Gypsy fusion band formed in Sydney, Australia in 1997. They have won three ARIA Music Awards for Best World Music Album in 2002 for Live on Stage, in 2003 for Absynthe and in 2005 for Monsieur Camembert. The linguistic repertoire of Monsieur Camembert's music includes English, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish.
Zydepunks is an American band based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 2003, they play a wide variety of multicultural music, including Cajun music and zydeco, Eastern European music, and punk rock. They perform in English, French, Spanish, Yiddish, Portuguese, and German. Their instrumentation includes vocals, violins, accordions, bass guitar, and drums.
Super Raoul is the debut LP from Fishtank Ensemble. The album was recorded live at Fishtank in Oakland, California in early 2004 and completed over the course of two weekends. At this time, the band had only been playing together for three weeks.
Gypsy jazz is a style of jazz generally accepted to have been started by the Romani guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in Paris during the 1930s. Because its origins are in France, and Reinhardt was from the Manouche Sinti clan, gypsy jazz is often called by the French name "jazz manouche", or alternatively, "manouche jazz" in English language sources.
Jukka Tiensuu is a Finnish contemporary classical composer, harpsichordist, pianist and conductor.
Jazz guitarists are guitarists who play jazz using an approach to chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fulfilled the roles of accompanist and soloist in small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied solo instrument.
Cafe Antarsia Ensemble (CAE) was created in New York City, United States, in 2001 when Greek/Texan Nikos Brisco and Ruth Margraff invited Egyptian-American percussionist Rami El-Aasser to join them for the live scoring of their first “world folk opera” "Judges 19: Black Lung Exhaling" created in Texas and New York and premiered at theater festivals in Moscow, Russia and Belgrade, Serbia.
TG Collective are an eclectic British-based ensemble, evolving from the successful acoustic guitar trio, Trio Gitano, in 2006. The TG Collective are based in Birmingham, England. Their sound draws on many influences, in particular Flamenco, Gypsy Jazz, Jazz and contemporary Classical music, with interchanging shapes and sizes of ensemble within a performance. The group is centered on two guitarists, set alongside a core of double bass, flute and violin and percussion, whilst also featuring flamenco dance in some performances.
The No Smoking Orchestra, frequently credited as Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra, is a Serbian garage rock band formed in Belgrade in 1993.
Aaron Seeman is a composer, pianist, and accordion player who has distinguished himself by adapting punk rock, popular music, show tunes, and cartoon theme songs for the accordion, as Duckmandu.
Kołysanki is the fifth studio album by Polish band Lux Occulta. The album was released on March 13, 2014. It is the first album released by the band in 13 years, as well as the first since the ending of the band's hiatus, making it the longest gap between the band's albums.
Michael Publig is an Austrian composer, pianist, instructor, and music manager. He studied piano with Roland Batik at the City of Vienna Conservatory and Social and Economic Sciences at the Vienna University of Economics.
Djordje Stijepovic is a Serbian-American double bass player, singer and composer. He is best known as bassist for the psychobilly band Tiger Army and for Nickelodeon star Drake Bell. He is also a former member of Lemmy Kilmister's (Motörhead) side project The Head Cat.
Cosmo Cosmolino are a gypsy, folk and tango band, which formed in 1995 by Hope Csutoros on lead violin, Helen Mountfort on cello and Judy Gunson on lead vocals and piano accordion. They were joined by Andrea Keeble on violin and Dan Witton on double bass and vocals in 1998. Their debut album, Streetsweeper, was independently released in April 2000 and was followed by Nektár in December 2004, which was nominated for Best World Music Album at the ARIA Music Awards of 2005. Csutoros was replaced by Sue Simpson on violin in 2006. Their third album, Bel Air, appeared in August 2011.
