Thursday Balkan Boogie with Greshka & Zemzemeh

Swing into the fabulous "It's Still a Secret" on Montague road for a delicious cocktail, some nibbles and be blown away by bombastic beats, silly segues and phenomenal French um music. And lots of alliteration.

Have you been feeling run down? You probably have a Vitamin S deficiency. Come to a Greshka gig for a big healthy nourishing dose of Vitamin Silly. They play music from Eastern Europe, gypsy, Balkan, klezmer – and all of it made extra silly with synthesisers, cimbaloms and singalongs. Greshka play music which sounds like the contents of Spongebob Squarepants suitcase as he sets sail for Sweden. There’s snappy sârbăs, synthonic ska and Serbian-style swing. It’s incessantly sporadic, spectacularly stupid, seldom stodgy, syllabically superfluous and unceasingly exceptionally SILLY!

Zemzemeh

Almost totally untethered from any single genre, Zemzemeh’s sound is a revelry of microtonal modes, poly-rhythmic grooves and an intricate fusion of its members’ individual styles. They are inspired by Sufi music from heart of the Sama; a transcendental ceremony of mystical music.


Siyavash’s tanbur, an ancient Persian three-stringed lute and, Greta’s shah kaman a spike-fiddle with a haunting resonance, paired with analogue and digital synths, theremini, beats, looping and effects give a new interpretation of Iran’s ancient music and poetry.