Beats Antique
Encyclopedia
Beats Antique is an experimental world fusion and electronic music
group. Formed in 2007 in conjunction with producer Miles Copeland
, the group has become noted for their mix of different genres as well as their live shows which mix samples and heavy percussives with Tribal Fusion
dance and performance art
.
in 1979, brings experience with many different styles of world music
to the collaborative drawing board of Beats Antique. He began playing music in high school, and graduated from the California Institute of the Arts
with a degree in music performance
and composition
. While attending CIA, he formed an experimental
instrumental group called The Funnies
. The Funnies recorded two albums, and toured in an eco-bus that ran entirely on recycled vegetable oil. In 2003, Satori moved to San Francisco to join Aphrodesia, a ten-piece afro-beat group. Aphrodesia toured the U.S. and made a trip to Nigeria
and traveled throughout West Africa
playing music. The afro-beat group’s tour ended in a performance at the New Shrine in Lagos
, a venue built by the son of afro-beat composer and player Fela Kuti
. His son Femi Kuti
also sat in with Aphrodesia, and inspired Satori to produce their 2007 album, Lagos by Bus. In 2004, back in San Francisco, Satori and Zoe Jakes met and began dating.
Zoe Jakes began belly dancing in 2000, but is a life long dancer, having 10 years of jazz and ballet dance experience under her belt. Her belly dancing is a blend of traditional belly dance with tango
, popping
, and Indian dance
. She toured with the Yard Dogs Road Show
for five years, performed with the Extra Action Marching Band
, and has been touring with The Indigo Belly Dance Company
for four years. She began touring with Bellydance Superstars
in 2005, a dance company produced by Miles Copeland. Jakes and Satori began working with Ableton Live
, a music program that the group does all of their producing in, and this is when she began to experiment with electronic music.
Tommy Cappel met Zoe Jakes 8 years ago when they were both members of Extra Action Marching Band. Satori and Cappel met years ago when Satori brought him in to play drums for a burning man
decompression party
. Cappel grew up in Fairfax, Virginia
. The son of two music teachers and the brother of a drummer, Cappel was always surrounded by music. At a young age he took up his brother’s drum set, and was playing with a band of friends by the age of six. Influenced by his father’s jazz
LP’s and his brothers prog rock and heavy metal
music, Cappel became very interested in percussion. In the 1990s, Cappel attended the Berklee College of Music
in Boston
for a degree in studio drumming. At Berklee, Cappel studied New Orleans jazz
, bebop
, modern jazz, and world music
. When one of his teachers needed help transcribing African and Arab drum patterns to a drum kit, Cappel helped and learned a lot of non-jazz rhythmic patterns. After graduating, he moved to New York City
and began exploring many different types of genres. He would spend a lot of time at the Bell, a café in Manhattan that held free music jams. When a group of friends and musicians moved to San Francisco, Cappel joined them.
Beats Antique was formed in San Francisco, California
in 2007 when Zoe Jakes approached her manager, Miles Copeland
(brother of drummer Stewart Copeland
of The Police
) about creating an album. Copeland green lit the project, and their debut album Tribal Derivations was conceived on Copeland’s CIA record label. Tribal Derivations was a concept album, created to complement the dance styles of producer/arranger Zoe Jakes. The group’s second album, Collide, reached the top 10 of most downloaded artists under the Middle East
and World Dance and the top 20 most downloaded electronic albums on Amazon
. For their third album, Contraption Vol. 1, Beats Antique brought in collaborators such as hammered dulcimer
player Jamie Janover, and beat boxer and hip hop
vocalist LYNX. Their 2010 release Blind Threshold featured harmonica player John Popper
of Blues Traveler
. The 10-track Elektraphone was released October 4, 2011 supported by a 26-city tour running from October to December 2011.
music, down tempo, hip-hop, old school jazz
, clown, afro-beat, and many styles of electronic music
. The musicians have been influenced by their diverse musical backgrounds. They incorporate many live instruments to produce their style of music.
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
group. Formed in 2007 in conjunction with producer Miles Copeland
Miles Copeland III
Miles Axe Copeland III is an American entertainment executive, best known for founding I.R.S. Records. His brother, Stewart Copeland, was part of the pop-rock trio The Police, which Miles managed...
, the group has become noted for their mix of different genres as well as their live shows which mix samples and heavy percussives with Tribal Fusion
Tribal Fusion
Tribal Fusion Belly Dance is a modern form of belly dance which has evolved from American Tribal Style belly dancing, blending elements of ATS with any other style of dance...
dance and performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
.
History
David Satori, born in Burlington, VermontBurlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
in 1979, brings experience with many different styles of world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
to the collaborative drawing board of Beats Antique. He began playing music in high school, and graduated from the California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...
with a degree in music performance
Performance
A performance, in performing arts, generally comprises an event in which a performer or group of performers behave in a particular way for another group of people, the audience. Choral music and ballet are examples. Usually the performers participate in rehearsals beforehand. Afterwards audience...
and composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...
. While attending CIA, he formed an experimental
Experimental music
Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...
instrumental group called The Funnies
The Funnies
The Funnies was the name of two American publications from Dell Publishing, the first of these a seminal, 1920s precursor of comic books, and the second a standard 1930s comic book.-The Funnies :In 1929, George T...
. The Funnies recorded two albums, and toured in an eco-bus that ran entirely on recycled vegetable oil. In 2003, Satori moved to San Francisco to join Aphrodesia, a ten-piece afro-beat group. Aphrodesia toured the U.S. and made a trip to Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
and traveled throughout West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
playing music. The afro-beat group’s tour ended in a performance at the New Shrine in Lagos
Lagos
Lagos is a port and the most populous conurbation in Nigeria. With a population of 7,937,932, it is currently the third most populous city in Africa after Cairo and Kinshasa, and currently estimated to be the second fastest growing city in Africa...
, a venue built by the son of afro-beat composer and player Fela Kuti
Fela Kuti
Fela Anikulapo Kuti , or simply Fela , was a Nigerian multi-instrumentalist musician and composer, pioneer of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, and political maverick.-Biography:...
. His son Femi Kuti
Femi Kuti
Olufela Olufemi Anikulapo Kuti popularly known as Femi Kuti, is a Nigerian musician and the eldest son of afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti....
also sat in with Aphrodesia, and inspired Satori to produce their 2007 album, Lagos by Bus. In 2004, back in San Francisco, Satori and Zoe Jakes met and began dating.
Zoe Jakes began belly dancing in 2000, but is a life long dancer, having 10 years of jazz and ballet dance experience under her belt. Her belly dancing is a blend of traditional belly dance with tango
Tango (ballroom)
Ballroom Tango is a ballroom dance that branched away from its original Argentine roots by allowing European, American, Hollywood, and competitive influences into the style and execution of the dance....
, popping
Popping
Popping is a street dance and one of the original funk styles that came from California during the 1960s-70s. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit...
, and Indian dance
Indian dance
Dance in India covers a wide range of dance and dance theatre forms, from the ancient classical or temple dance to folk and modern styles.Three best-known Hindu deities, Shiva, Kali and Krishna, are typically represented dancing. There are hundreds of Indian folk dances such as Bhangra, Bihu,...
. She toured with the Yard Dogs Road Show
Yard Dogs Road Show
Yard Dogs Road Show is a thirteen-member traveling cabaret that features a unique blend of performances, including vaudeville, burlesque, stage magic, sideshow oddities, and beatnik "hobo poetry." Performances include musical interludes, song and dance numbers, and background music from the Yard...
for five years, performed with the Extra Action Marching Band
Extra Action Marching Band
The Extra Action Marching Band is an American musical group loosely based on the American marching band construct. The instrumentation is entirely brass and drums...
, and has been touring with The Indigo Belly Dance Company
The Indigo Belly Dance Company
The Indigo Belly Dance Company is a tribal fusion style belly dance company based in San Francisco. It was founded by Rachel Brice in 2003. Its members include Brice, Mardi Love, and Zoe Jakes. Past members include Sharon Kihara, Ariellah Aflalo, and Michelle Campbel...
for four years. She began touring with Bellydance Superstars
Bellydance Superstars
Bellydance Superstars is a professional American bellydance troupe formed in 2002 by producer and manager Miles Copeland. In its first six years of touring, it presented 700 shows in 22 countries....
in 2005, a dance company produced by Miles Copeland. Jakes and Satori began working with Ableton Live
Ableton Live
Ableton Live is a loop-based software music sequencer and DAW for Mac OS and Windows by Ableton. The latest major release of Live, Version 8, was released in April 2009. In contrast to many other software sequencers, Live is designed to be an instrument for live performances as well as a tool for...
, a music program that the group does all of their producing in, and this is when she began to experiment with electronic music.
Tommy Cappel met Zoe Jakes 8 years ago when they were both members of Extra Action Marching Band. Satori and Cappel met years ago when Satori brought him in to play drums for a burning man
Burning Man
Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Monday before the American Labor Day holiday, and ends on the holiday itself. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening...
decompression party
Decompression party
A decompression party, decom or decomp is a local reunion for Burning Man participants to help ease themselves back into everyday society after the "big event". It is not uncommon for Burning Man participants to experience "post-burn blues", and decompression events can help alleviate the feelings...
. Cappel grew up in Fairfax, Virginia
Fairfax, Virginia
The City of Fairfax is an independent city forming an enclave within the confines of Fairfax County, in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Although politically independent of the surrounding county, the City is nevertheless the county seat....
. The son of two music teachers and the brother of a drummer, Cappel was always surrounded by music. At a young age he took up his brother’s drum set, and was playing with a band of friends by the age of six. Influenced by his father’s jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
LP’s and his brothers prog rock and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
music, Cappel became very interested in percussion. In the 1990s, Cappel attended the Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
for a degree in studio drumming. At Berklee, Cappel studied New Orleans jazz
New Orleans Jazz
New Orleans Jazz may refer to:*Dixieland, a style of jazz music*New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park*Utah Jazz, a professional National Basketball Association franchise that was previously based in New Orleans and known as the New Orleans Jazz, in recognition of the jazz music of New Orleans*A...
, bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
, modern jazz, and world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
. When one of his teachers needed help transcribing African and Arab drum patterns to a drum kit, Cappel helped and learned a lot of non-jazz rhythmic patterns. After graduating, he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and began exploring many different types of genres. He would spend a lot of time at the Bell, a café in Manhattan that held free music jams. When a group of friends and musicians moved to San Francisco, Cappel joined them.
Beats Antique was formed in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
in 2007 when Zoe Jakes approached her manager, Miles Copeland
Miles Copeland III
Miles Axe Copeland III is an American entertainment executive, best known for founding I.R.S. Records. His brother, Stewart Copeland, was part of the pop-rock trio The Police, which Miles managed...
(brother of drummer Stewart Copeland
Stewart Copeland
Stewart Armstrong Copeland is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the band The Police. During the group's extended hiatus from the mid-1980s to 2007, he played in other bands and composed soundtracks...
of The Police
The Police
The Police were an English rock band formed in London in 1977. For the vast majority of their history, the band consisted of Sting , Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland...
) about creating an album. Copeland green lit the project, and their debut album Tribal Derivations was conceived on Copeland’s CIA record label. Tribal Derivations was a concept album, created to complement the dance styles of producer/arranger Zoe Jakes. The group’s second album, Collide, reached the top 10 of most downloaded artists under the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and World Dance and the top 20 most downloaded electronic albums on Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
. For their third album, Contraption Vol. 1, Beats Antique brought in collaborators such as hammered dulcimer
Hammered dulcimer
The hammered dulcimer is a stringed musical instrument with the strings stretched over a trapezoidal sounding board. Typically, the hammered dulcimer is set on a stand, at an angle, before the musician, who holds small mallet hammers in each hand to strike the strings...
player Jamie Janover, and beat boxer and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
vocalist LYNX. Their 2010 release Blind Threshold featured harmonica player John Popper
John Popper
John Popper is an American musician and songwriter.He is most famous for his role as frontman of rock band Blues Traveler performing harmonica, guitar and vocals...
of Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler
Blues Traveler is a rock band, formed in Princeton, New Jersey in 1987. The band has been influenced by a variety of genres, including blues-rock, psychedelic rock, folk rock, soul, and Southern rock...
. The 10-track Elektraphone was released October 4, 2011 supported by a 26-city tour running from October to December 2011.
Musical style
The styles combined to create Beats Antique’s unique sound are a union of old and new inspirations. There are infusions of Middle Eastern belly danceBelly dance
Belly dance or Bellydance is a "Western"-coined name for a traditional "Middle Eastern" dance, especially raqs sharqi . It is sometimes also called Middle Eastern dance or Arabic dance in the West, or by the Greco-Turkish term çiftetelli...
music, down tempo, hip-hop, old school jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, clown, afro-beat, and many styles of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
. The musicians have been influenced by their diverse musical backgrounds. They incorporate many live instruments to produce their style of music.
Discography
- 2007: Tribal Derivations
- 2008: Collide
- 2009: Contraption Vol. 1
- 2010: The Trunk Archives EP
- 2010: Blind Threshold
- 2011: Elektrafone