47 f East In The East

London, that is – where the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Eastern Med are all part of the everyday cultural mix. Jamie Renton checks out the Turbans, Don Kipper and Dila V & The Odd Beats.

Eastern Europe. United in their passion, respect and willingness to mix and match.

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In spite of the worst efforts of the gentrifiers, East London retains, for the most part, a multi-cultural buzz and bands such as The Turbans, Don Kipper and Dila & The Oddbeats reflect this.

I catch up with seven-piece purveyors of ‘the sound of North East London’, Don Kipper, round a table at Camden’s Green Note between soundcheck and perfor- mance. The band, who play a mix of Balkan, Greek and klezmer, are about to release their third album Seven Sisters (Riverboat) but their conversation initially centres on the vital question of where to find the best falafel wraps in town (Stam- ford Hill’s Grill On The Hill, in case you’re interested). The band initially came out of

Don Kipper

here’s something going on out East. Various bands in East Lon- don drawing on the musical traditions of the Middle East, the East Mediterranean and

various jam sessions involving students from SOAS and City University and has been together in its current form for about four years. As their name suggests, their roots are in klezmer, whereas now they aim to reflect the cultural mix that surrounds them. “We were already playing some Greek and Turkish music before Dunja joined,” explains bassist Jamie Ben- zies. Dunja being Serbian-Greek singer Dunja Botic. “Once she was in the band, we carried on further in that direction.”

Why do all those Eastern influences work so well together? “Geographically, you can see how clearly it’s set out,” reck- ons Jamie. “It has a flavour of music that Western ears find hard to grasp, but it also has very familiar things. So, you can expand your palette and explore these different colours. Whereas to go the full whack to Indian music, which some would say is the origin of Eastern Euro- pean music, through Romani people, is much harder.”

Band members hail from a range of cultural backgrounds but were all born in the UK, apart from Dunja, who was born in Cyprus and grew up mostly in Greece. “Traditional music is ever evolving,” explains accordeonist Josh Middleton. “And where it’s got to now, there’s a strong strain of the kind of musics we play. Since the 1980s, klezmer has been on the up and continues to be so. You’ll find grass roots klezmer bands springing up quite a bit. Whereas Balkan music didn’t have the revival that klezmer did in the ’80s, but has become popular more recently. It’s a very broad term; there are some grassroots Balkan bands who, like the grassroots klezmer bands, are interested in playing in the tradition. Then there are others who take the aspects of the tradition that they like, superimposing them on popular styles such as ska. A lot of bands in the UK describe themselves as Balkan, but sound completely different from one another. So, it’s not a very reliable guideline nowadays as to what you’re going to sound like.”