ramallah tel aviv

mr. mammoth's love for balkan beat box is well-documented. which is why we're very pleased to present the recently unlocked (thanks to gizmodo) "ramallah tel aviv," the itunes bonus track off nu-med.


"ramallah tel aviv" is a real breath of fresh air in the bbb arsenal. instead of opening with the expected bass rumble and danceable beats, "ramallah tel aviv" employs off-rhythm acoustic chords before bringing in sparse piano and a hip-friendly beat, though the track is overwhelmingly less layered than most bbb offerings. i imagine that this song, sung in hebrew and arabic, is intended more as a deliberate political statement, an attempt to linguistically and rhythmically bridge the israeli-palestinian divide, and was conceived as such, not as a standard balkan beat box song. it takes nearly three minutes for ori kaplan to bring in the sax, relying much more on the aforementioned piano and bongos to carry the song. as a nice change of pace, "ramallah tel aviv" certainly does its job.

balkan beat box - "ramallah tel aviv" (buy nu-med, released on jdub records, here.)