Urban Turban is a splended cultural crasch.
This is blues echoing out of some parallel universe.
This is how it might have sounded if Captain Beefheart had conducted an Arabian Big Band.
This music could be what would happen if you somehow traveled back in time and described the blues to a primitive Finno-Ugric tribe, using only sign language, and then they decided to put on a farewell concert for you before you left. Wow. So long, and thank you for all the fish.
Urban Turban manage to manipulate everything at once – instrumentation, tone, intonation, rhythm and arrangements – but it is still the blues.
They use instruments and sounds hard to identify, lurking away out at the ragged edge of western tunings, but it hangs together and it rings true. Take “Let’s Work Together” for an insterstellar example. Wilbert Harrison’s original had a bouncy rhythm and a simple la-la-la major key melody. Urban Turban sing the same song, but modalize and twist the melody into something more sinister. Which hemisphere is Sweden is anyway?
Slide in some thick, rich syrupy vocals an octave lower than you would expect, and add a spray of tinkling, sproinging, creaking, rattling, thumping and chattering. Do not forget the wheezing.
All the sounds of the blues at once, done in a Swedish accent.
Members
Peter Bryngelsson - slidegitarr, oud och sång
Mikael Svanevik - darbuka, trummor och sång
Pelle Lindström - sång, munspel, percussion.
Henric Andersson - saz, klarinett, vibrafon.
Ulla Andersson - sång, chapman stick
Göran Kunstbergs - moraharpa
Hand Durdel - bas
Sara Edin - fiol
