On Chaim Laroz and mastering the bass
Perhaps taking some cues from Yossi Fine on how to turn one’s self from a local bass session player into an international bass master, Chaim Laroz has been continually reinventing himself over the course of recent years.
An accomplished session man, producer, touring band member, composer and solo band leader, Laroz rose the ranks of Israeli bassists starting in the Nineties, when he collaborated extensively with the likes of Assaf Amdursky and Berry Sakharof. He also served as a member of Ra’ash, an alternative guitar rock act which released three influential albums throughout that decade.
Laroz helped Karni Postel rise to the brink of her mainstream pop successes of today when they formed the Bikini duo, with Postel handling vocals and Laroz handling almost all of the rest of the sound (including bass, samplers, oud and percussion parts).
Laroz branched still farther outward when he remixed a single for the Pet Shop Boys, arranged soundtracks for the celebrated Batsheva dance ensemble and formed a seminal groovetronica project called EQs, which essentially sent him off into the world of dancehall, dub and funk, where he primarily exists today.
In 2004 and 2005, Laroz spent some time living and gigging in Australia, but he came back to Israel. The unfortunately titled Laroz is a Rose album, his solo debut, came out ten years ago, and Laroz has been involved mostly with his career as a solo artist based in Israel ever since. His latest studio solo effort, 2006′s Soundsystem, includes guest spots from real-deal Jamaicans like Trevor Sax and Fitta Warri.
However, he’s still garnering attention internationally. In November, Philadelphia-based music blog Mad Decent called him “a true pioneer in the Israeli Reggae & Electronica scene” and linked to several downloadable and streaming Laroz remixes (Noiz in Zion also offered a remix recently). And locally he’s been active as well, touring sporadically in recent months and leading a bass master workshop in Tel Aviv this month.
Experiments of acoustic whimsy
Filed under: Art, General, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture
Possibly the closest thing Israel has to a bona fide guitar rock god, Berry Sakharof is also a man of many collaborations. His chameleon-like changeovers have included forays into alt-industrial Euro new wave, folk-ethnic Eastern spiritual poetry songs and club rhythm-infused pop-metal. It’s all kind, and it’s all worth catching.
A few years ago, Sakharof explored his intimate side with a special mini-tour of acoustic gigs – many cuts from which made up the meat of the bonus acoustic disc from 2003′s In Concert boxed set. On this tour, he was accompanied almost exclusively by Zohar Fresco (check out his official site as well as his Myspace profile for great samples of his work that showcase his amazing talents), an extraordinary hand-percussionist. As Sakharof has been known to do every now and then, he has recently rekindled this collaboration, appearing on stage this past weekend at Jerusalem’s Ma’abada Theater.
The planners at the Ma’abada clearly were once again caught off-guard by the logistics of this event. Although the sound was well-mixed and clear, the venue unfortunately over-sold beyond capacity. Most rock shows held here involve a large open floor for bouncing revelers, but the laid-back nature of the acoustic format justified setting up rows of chairs across the entire floor, and when the crowds piled in close to the gig’s opening number, passageway aisles disappeared as more chairs were thrown down haphazardly, and some people were suddenly told that certain seats needed to remain empty in order to facilitate the movements of the performers.
But once the vibes settled down, the beauty of the music took over. Sakharof’s songs are simply great, and their flavors were accentuated by the bandless format. Less coordinated accompaniment means more room for drama and improvisation, and Sakharof and Fresco were clearly relishing in this dynamic, approaching the sings with whimsy and not hiding their smiles to each other.
Highlights from the set included classic Sakharof love songs like “Chaval She’at Lo” and “Basof Shel Yom,” experimental numbers like “Ra’ash Lavan” and covers of folk song standards.
Berry stuck to his guitar mostly, but he played with chords emanating from a pedal-triggered synthesizer as well, and the show opened with just him at the piano doing crowd favorites “Kama Yossi” and “Haolam Ha’amiti.” For the duration of the concert, the band grew in tiers – first with Fresco joining in, then a pianist/wind player, and finally with surprise guest Daniel Zamir, the Tzadik Records-affiliated post-klez alt-jazz sax player.
Berry needs to come to town more often.
When Berry comes to town…
Seeing 50-year-old Israeli rocker Berry Sakharof in concert is always a treat, even though it usually means squeezing into tight spaces that are packed elbow-to-elbow with teenagers.
One of the godfathers of the Israeli musical export scene, Sakharof started his professional career in Holland with Minimal Compact, an industrial post-glam new wave act he founded with garage punk Rami Fortis. Since the mid-90s, Sakharof has involved himself in a number of musical directions, scoring soundtracks, reuniting here and there with Fortis, and exploring the verses of 11th-century Andalusian Rabbi Solomon ibn Gvirol and the ideas of 20th-century French philosopher Emmanuel Lévinas. But most of Sakharof’s projects have more or less surrounded his canon of six classic studio albums, some of which were co-arranged by the rhythm-forging sample master Rea Mochiach.
Sakharof creates soundscapes that are ambitious and challenging to the listener but at the same time energetic and infectious. Sakharof gets respect for his rhythms, his Middle Eastern picking and his overall headiness, but he’s primarily a purveyor of guitar rock that’s just plain good – his songs have something to offer everyone from sing-along melody lovers to snobby hipsters.
This past Thursday, Sakharof and band returned for yet another blistering two-hour show at Jerusalem’s Yellow Submarine club. Like all Israeli entertainers, Sakharof works hard to make a living, which means that fans have the opportunity to catch him live a few times a year without having to bust out the binoculars. The relaxed showman made some jokes about how Jerusalemites are prone to disrespect towards his home of Tel Aviv, gave away a few guitar picks, and even broke into his patented Turkish cha-cha step more than once.
The Submarine staff had some problems with the sound system (Mochiach threw a tantrum from behind his drum kit at one point), but for the most part, the band was tight and properly vicious, from recent edgy jams like “New Wind” to revamped catalogue favorites like “Sampson” (a Dr. Dre-like synth whine replaced the studio version’s whistling high parts) and “I Don’t Love Her” (somehow transported to Kingston). The 1994 anthem “How Yossi” became a springboard for free-form wall-of-noise jams that evoked Crazy Horse. By the time the band hit the last encore for the night, the sparse Fortis-Sakharof hit “No End to Childhood,” the sweaty room was bouncing agelessly.
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