When it comes to musical subgenres, are there any more neglected than accordion hip-hop? Lewis of the TDA Squeeze Blog linked to this week’s top entertainment picks from the Boston Globe, which highlights a show Friday in Cambridge featuring not one, but TWO acts with accordion-playing rappers. Seriously, what are the odds?
Called “polka’s antithesis” by the New York Times, Julz A (aka Julian Hintz) bills himself as “somewhere between Beck and The Beastie Boys with an accordion,” and the tracks from his solo EP, “Squeeze Rock”, definitely fit the comparison (see links below). While Julz A goes it alone, Ghorar Deem Express (which translates literally to “the horse?s egg” in Bengali, used to mean “nonsense”) is a ten-person combo whose music runs the gamut from rock to klezmer to funk to balkan folk, with plenty of stops in-between. Rachel Koppelman is their accordionist.
Check out some samples:
Julz A: Out on the Tiles (Led Zeppelin cover, streaming MP3)
Julz A: Julz-A.com (streaming MP3)
Ghorar Deem Express: Mucoid Plaque (MP3 download)