Brainquility Festival Teaser – Beats Antique
[All videos courtesy of Beats Antique Youtube Channel]
Brainquility Festival is coming to Florida in just a few weeks, and it promises to be one of the biggest events to hit the Tampa Bay area. Taking place Saturday, April 21st, at Waterfront Park in Safety Harbor, Brainquility Festival brings a packed roster of diverse music, unique artists and great food trucks that will have something for everyone.
The one-day festival brings several acts that do not often get to the area, including Lettuce, Beats Antique, Voodoo Visionary, TAUK, MZG, and SIDE TRAKD.
Each week we will highlight one of the acts on the lineup, and this week’s act is Beats Antique.
Beats Antique is one of the most unusual acts playing at Brainquility — or anywhere — this year. While they are serious touring regulars, Beats Antique rarely gets to Tampa, so this is a great chance to see this Oakland, California-based trio.
Formed in 2007 in San Francisco, Beats Antique are David Satori, Zoe Jakes and Tommy ‘Sidecar’ Cappel. Frequently joined or collaborating with a huge roster of other artists, they blend an astounding array of diverse musical influences, sounds and rhythms ranging from African tribal dance, electronica, Middle Eastern, world music, New Orleans brass bands, EDM, hip hop and more.
Their debut album Tribal Derivations was conceived as a concept album by Jakes, who also arranged and produced the album. It was designed to complement Jakes’ dance styles. It features a very heavy Middle Eastern influence combining a number of traditional Middle Eastern instruments such as tabla, saz, darbouka and more combined with heavy beats and samples.
Their sophomore follow-up, Collide, continued with more heavy Middle Eastern sounds and became one of the top ten most downloaded Middle East and world dance albums on Amazon.
Their next album, Contraption Vol. 1, saw the band bringing in even more influences with many songs having a distinct Far East influence, while others included large brass bands and more.
2010 saw the release of Blind Threshold, their fourth album. Continuing their established sound, this album featured several more diverse influences and a more pronounced electronic feel. This release also saw an unusual collaboration with John Popper of Blues Traveler on a song titled “There Ya Go.”
They steadily released new material each year since up through 2016. They have also toured heavily including a 2014 tour with Shpongle. Their 2018 tour will see them playing across the US, including a stop later in the year at Summer Camp Music Festival in Illinois.