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Edinburgh Fringe 2016

Moishe’s Bagel

Moishe's Bagel

Genre: Live Music

Venue: Acoustic Music Centre, St Bride's

Festival:


Low Down

An evening of music covering many genres from an Edinburgh based group with an international outlook.

Review

Moishe’s Bagel began in 2003, the lucky accident of an Edinburgh-based Chilean tango singer and four like-minded musicians.  The quintet’s love of klezmer, jazz and Latin music soon saw them branch out from playing a few tunes at Henry’s Cellar Bar to tour gigs across the UK, Ireland, and the Czech Republic. In addition to live touring, they’ve won awards for each of the four CDs they’ve recorded and have even composed and performed a score for the Soviet silent film classic Salt for Svanetia.

 Putting a music label around the sound coming from piano, accordion, double bass, violin, a range of percussion and the occasional contribution from other instruments is next to impossible. Is it folk, Celtic, salsa (several of the band also play with Salsa Celtica) or all of the above? Probably the latter, given that we had tunes from Armenia, Algeria, Spain, Brazil, Russia, Czech Republic, Ireland, Scotland and several other locations, giving a real international feel to this concert down at the Acoustic Music Centre, St Bride’s.

Haunting violin, frenetic bass and urgent percussion were the hallmark of a number of tunes. Close your eyes and you could have been in a sun-drenched square almost anywhere in the Middle East, with strong coffee and hubble-bubble pipes to pass the time as the music flowed around you. Opening the eyes rather shattered the image!

We had tunes ranging from an Algerian traditional lament that was very evocative, Biblical almost through to one called “Zen of the Art of Wallpaper Stripping”, inspired by…….well, I’ll leave you to fill in the blanks on that one. Klezmah in a nice 3/8 time, Spanish and Latin American rumbas and a couple of lively Czech and Russian dances rounded off an excellent evening of music from some very unlikely places. This was the last of three gigs from this very impressive quintet but they tour regularly, so check out their website for more details. Thoroughly recommended listening!

Published