By Joel Hanke |Staff Writer|
Beats Antique rocked the Yost theatre stage time traveling viewers through a ‘Hero’s’ journey and there new album ‘A Thousand Faces Act 1’. The tour made a stop in Santa Ana this past Wednesday, Nov. 13, after recently releasing their sixth album on Oct. 15.
There first concept album ‘A Thousand Faces Act 1’ was inspired by Joseph Campbell’s mono-myth, A Hero With a Thousand Faces. The album utilizes a vast number of worldly instruments to construct their very own musical interpretation of Campbell’s ‘Hero’s’ journey.
The trio combine experimental, world music, and electronic to create a tribal fusion of both sound and live performance. Their musical performance brought together numerous cultural traditions and sound from all across the globe.
Established in Oakland California in 2007, Beats Antique consists of three band members: beat maker and percussionist Tommy Cappel, AKA Sidecar Tommy, multi-instrumentalist David Satori, and co-producer/innovative tribal belly-dancer Zoe Jakes.
Beats Antique’s sound incorporates many aspects of modern-day electronic sound along with a more primitive tribal core including genres such as Middle Eastern belly-dance music, afro-beat, old school jazz, and most recently instruments from traditional Indonesian gamelan ensembles.
In attendance was fellow dancer and music enthusiast, Katy Leona, who stated “I hadn’t listened to the new album prior to tonight, but I have seen Beast Antique seven or eight times and that was the all-time most ‘awe’ inspiring performance I’ve ever seen them do. Sidecar Tommy and David Satori both had moments highlighting their musical talent. Zoe James danced like never before with new eastern inspired energy and dance moves.” Leona added, “Everyone in the room experienced waves of ecstatic sonic and visual pleasures throughout the night.”
Their live performance played the entirety of the new album from start to finish, captivating the audience from beginning to end as if reading a story. Along with each song, or segment of the ‘Hero’s’ story, brought a completely different visually stimulating performance.
Even with all the visual lights and shape shifting projections, the real connection with the crowd came through Jake’s entrancing dance performace.
She must of changed into at least ten different costumes, with every song she would throw the audience into a brand new epic as if turning the page of a fairy tale book to the next story.
In the opening number, “Overture” Jake was bejewled from head to toe in her regularly fashioned belly dancing attire captivating the audience with her rythmicly slow eqyptian style dance moves.
Later on she was portrayed as a sideshow circus floozy during “Doors of Destiny,” as projections of Cappel and Satori came on screen as carnival barkers drawing the audience into the “show.”
Jakes then proceeded to pick a random person from the audience to win one of three prizes, ‘eternal damnation,’ ‘ever lasting life,’ or ‘an unlimited band with free technical support.’ As a countdown of three, two, one sounded around the venue, the beat then dropped causing a giant blown up one eyed monster to pop out of the stage and begin dancing with Jake’s and the random audience member.
After listening to this album and seeing the performance, not one track of this album sounds similar to another. With each song comes a unique tone and story line in which Beat’s is trying to get across. This album is only half of ‘A Thousand Faces’ as Act 1, keep an eye out for ‘Act 2’ to be released sometime next year.
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