Yonatan Gat ft. Maalem Hassan BenJafaar

Throughout his unpredictable career, guitarist Yonatan Gat has blazed a fiery trail in contemporary music. From his legendary performances with Israeli punk band Monotonix in the ‘00s, to explosive LPs such as 2018’s David Berman-produced Universalists or last year's American Quartet where Gat – along with Greg Saunier from Deerhoof and Mikey Coltun of Mdou Moctar's band – performed a straight up punk adaptation of a 19th century string quartet, adding layers of mayhem and spontaneity. Over the last decade and a half, Gat has created a body of work that explores new frontiers of sound and performance, while pushing against the restrictive boundaries of genre.

 

In recent years Gat focused much of his attention on his burgeoning Stone Tapes imprint, a genre-smashing label and collective created in partnership with Joyful Noise Records. To Gat, “Stone Tapes is a space where radical experimental musicians and radical traditional musicians collaborate”.

 

Artists on Stone Tapes include trailblazing psychedelic powwow group Medicine Singers as well as first new music from Monotonix  in over 12 years and a collaboration between African guitar maverick Mamady Kouyate (from Guinean legends Bembeya Jazz) and Laraaji. Another Stone Tapes signee is Maalem Hassan BenJafaar of Daptone's Innov Gnawa – a master of gnawa, a traditional, sacred music style and ritual from Morocco. BenJafaar, along with drum powerhouse Ignabu will join Gat's upcoming set on May 21st at Brooklyn Bowl in Brooklyn, NY.

Evolfo’s homegrown musical universe is forever expanding.If the Brooklyn-based pysch rockers felt pressured to repeat the successes of their 2017albumLast of the Acid Cowboysthey certainly didn’t show it. One might think a band that racked up 6 million plus streams on their debut record would try to recreate this by doing more of the same. But when the 7 members of Evolfo piled into the tiny,sweltering, attic-turned-recording studio of band leader Matt Gibbs’ Ditmas Park home,they intended to step confidently forward into fresh sounds and more vivid conceptual subject matter. They have flipped the world of the Acid Cowboy on its head, departing the earth-bound adventures in melting landscapes, rat cities, and desert sojourns for metaphysical territory and the mountains of the mind. “We’re always going to be in a state of flux,” says Gibbs, who formed the group a decade ago, “I consider this to be an exciting, positive thing. We have to embrace our own change.” On their brand newalbumSite Out of Mind, Evolfo reaches far beyond the confines of genre to create a colorful echo drenched psych rock dream all their own. Adorned with a mind bending cover by visual artist Robert Beatty, the result is a collection of songs that are unexpected, absorbing, and blissfully tripped out.