Celebrating ten prolific years with their tenth studio release, the Bay Area’s Beats Antique has prepared an epic cross-country tour leading through the New Year, taking the trio of David Satori, Sidecar Tommy, and Zoe Jakes between historic venues and festivals like Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre, New York’s Irving Plaza, Louisiana’s Voodoo Music + Arts Festival, and beyond.
As modern-day storytellers for the digital age–where the Beats meet the Antique–the band’s live show comes fully equipped to bridge the newest technology with ancient-rooted traditions, bringing to life a singular sound that touches on downtempo Middle Eastern influences, cinematic orchestral arrangements, and futuristic interpretations of trap and bass currents.
The live immersive show dives full-on into the theme of shadow play, being deeply influenced by ancient practices of Indonesian shadow puppetry in the world of wayang kulit, the eons long tradition of storytelling where epic tales unfold into the wee hours of the morning. Through dance performances, art theater, crowd interaction, and intricate set design, the Shadowbox tour explores the other worlds that light, shadow, and high contrast dimensions can create. In particular, this tour features the work of Oakland-based geometric light sculpture artists HYBYCOZO to create custom lanterns for the stage.
The tour doubles as a preview of new material from Beats Antique’s forthcoming Shadowbox album, which includes features from Alam Khan, Tatiana Kalmykova, and brasshouse trio TOO MANY ZOOZ, who joins Beats Antique on the majority of tour dates. TOO MANY ZOOZ baritone sax player Leo Pellegrino recently appeared on “Daddy Lessons” from Beyoncé’s Lemonade album after being scouted from a viral video of the band busking in a New York City subway station. Beats Antique will also be joined on a string of dates by Bay Area experimental bass producer Thriftworks. Beats Antique is also featured on TOO MANY ZOOZ new album Subway Gawdz available now.
Beats Antique recently premiered the first single from their album, “Killer Bee” featuring Lafa Taylor (
https://soundcloud.com/beatsantique/beats-antique-killer-bee-ft-lafa-taylor) via Billboard, mentioning that the track is “about standing up to prejudices. Just because someone calls you a killer bee, doesn’t mean you need to kill. We want people to define themselves and not be defined by what people think they should be. We are using this as an opportunity to help the bees.” As such, Beats Antique will be donating a percentage of proceeds from the July 1st show at Morrison, Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre to The Honeybee Conservancy, a non-profit dedicated to education, outreach, and research support in response to the bee crisis. The equally compelling music video (
https://youtu.be/-wRva0aguAQ) directed by Kyrian Bobeerian recently premiered over at YourEDM.com
After ten years of album releases and tours, Shadowbox marks the first release created in the band’s Shadowbox Productions recording studio in the Bay Area. Tying into Beats Antique’s three-dimensional approach to artistry, the group has recently opened a storefront in Berkeley, California (1741 Alcatraz Avenue) that creates a life-sized rendition of the Shadowbox concept, which also functions as a community events space and trade point for tour merch and local designers’ jewelry, art, and fashion.
http://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/beats-antique-headlines-red-rocks
