Ouzo Bazooka And The International Psychedelic Revival
Ouzo Bazooka And The International Psychedelic Revival
Uri Brauner Kinrot talks about his addiction to blending traditional folk styles with Western-oriented rock
Parallel the revival of 1960s-era psychedelic rock is the return of its weirder, international cousin. Inspired by American and British bands like the 13th Floor Elevators, the Pretty Things, and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd, bands from around the world—in places as disparate as the Middle East, North Africa, South America, and the Far East—reimagined their traditional musics via a colorful blend of fuzzy guitars, early synths, and Farfisa organs. That music is making a comeback—check out bands like Altin Gün (they’re Dutch, but the music is Turkish), Acid Mothers Temple (Japan), and Forshpil (klezmer, but with a twist)—and in Israel, the pioneers of the local iteration of revivalist psych is Ouzo Bazooka, a band fronted by guitarist, vocalist, and producer, Uri Brauner Kinrot.
Ouzo Bazooka isn’t Brauner Kinrot’s first project. He’s been on the scene for about two decades—he’s done a lot of work with groups like Balkan Beat Box, Firewater, and many others—and outside of Ouzo Bazooka, he’s probably best known as a founding member of the Balkan/Mediterranean surf band, Boom Pam, who’ve been together since 2003. But Ouzo Bazooka was an opportunity to let his hair down, and crank the amps to 11.
“The sound that I had in my mind didn’t really fit with what we were doing with Boom Pam,” Brauner Kinrot says. “I wanted to do something that was more like the music that I was listening to in those years, which was rock music from all over the world, but not from the U.S. or U.K., but all those weird mixtures of rock ’n' roll with any kind of folk music.”
Brauner Kinrot does production work as well, his most recent project being vocalist Liraz Charhi’s second release, which—typical of the type of work he likes to do—is a modern take on pre-revolutionary Iranian pop (check out this feature I wrote about Iranian diva, Googoosh). He also has a number of collaborations up his sleeve, including projects with Ori Kaplan (Balkan Beat Box, Shotnez), and Hibiscus, with Elran Dekel (Funk'n'stein), and Kutiman.
Needless to say, Brauner Kinrot is busy—and COVID be damned—but he took some time to speak with me from his studio in Herzliya. We discussed his early years and the influence of Greek-born Israeli icon, Aris San, performing with the legendary Turkish singer, Selda Bağcan, the unusual sounds of international psych, Israel’s cultural shift eastward, and how music, ultimately, is borderless.
I didn’t realize you were involved with the new Liraz record. How did you end up working on that?
I met Liraz through Dan Basman. He manages my band, Boom Pam, and also Liraz. He connected us to produce her second album. I saw her perform a couple of times, and it is always interesting for me to produce artists who combine folklore with modern music. I didn’t really know her before that—I knew who she was, she knew who I was—but then I got to know her, and she’s an amazing person. We had such a good time working together. She brought some songs, and I wrote with her a little bit. But then she decided that she wanted to collaborate with some Iranian musicians. She was communicating with people from Iran, and they were sending her songs back and forth. It was super exciting—and still is—because it’s just being released now.
The music sounds like a 21st century take on classic pre-revolutionary Iranian pop.
That’s what I am trying to do, but in a way, I’m still keeping it vintage, which is what I like to do.
Do you record using vintage gear?
I have some stuff here in the studio that you can consider vintage. We record into a computer through vintage equipment. But the way I process the music is always kind of old school. I do everything in the box [in the computer], but, for instance, the last Ouzo Bazooka album was recorded to tape, which I just got at the beginning of the year. I managed to sync the tape to my DAW [Digital Audio Workstation], and then record and bounce tracks back and forth. It was all recorded to tape, but mixed on the computer.
What’s your background and when did you start playing guitar?
I started guitar when I was around nine or ten. I played a Spanish guitar—just playing songs and stuff—but then, when I was 12 or so, I found a friend who also played guitar. My parents bought me an electric guitar, and I started with Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, and then Nirvana and stuff like that, but I never took it that seriously. My parents really wanted me to go to Arts High School (Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts), and in order to get accepted I had to practice and study theory. I was not really into it. I did my best. The first time I was not accepted, but they gave me a second chance, and then I was accepted, and then I had no choice. I loved music, but I now I had to take it seriously. Before that, most of the afternoons I would ride skateboards in the streets. In high school, I met a lot of young musicians who were so talented, and I was carried with the music. I studied jazz even though I was not really into jazz, but it gave me a lot of tools to find my way.
Did you start Boom Pam in high school?
Not really. Tuby (Yuval "Tuby" Zolotov) and Uzi Feinerman were in high school with me, but they were one grade behind me. I kept in touch with Uzi after high school. We shared an apartment when we were 21. We jammed a lot, and started messing with different music, like Egyptian music and Greek music. We started from blues actually—we had a band before that, called Pez, and we mainly played free form music, but we also started messing with Balkan music and stuff like that. But later, when I was living with Uzi, we wanted to form something new, and we wanted to use a tuba, instead of a bass. We called Tuby, and started to write original music. Although one of our first songs was a cover of “Boom Pam,” by Aris San, and it made sense to name the band after that song.
Aris San had iconic status in Israel.
Yes, playing Greek music on electric guitar. Basically, when I was 20, I somehow listened again after years of knowing his music. It sounded to me like Dick Dale, but in a much more exotic way. There are a lot of similarities between the way that he plays—all those Eastern scales—but Aris San is much more advanced in the way that he solos and things like that. It’s not really rock ’n’ roll. It’s like Greek music on steroids, and sometimes even on acid, especially the long solo parts.
Have you studied Balkan and Mediterranean music?
Not really. I play from listening, imitating, and trying to find my way by playing things I’ve heard. But I am not really educated when it comes to Eastern music. My attitude is still like an uneducated rock ’n’ roll player.
Why did you decide to use a tuba and not a bass in Boom Pam?
We were listening to Balkan music and it made sense. It was 2003, and we started playing Greek music. I think we had watched some Emir Kusturica films. My parents had a lot of cassettes of Balkan music—they danced to Balkan music when I was a kid—and I took the cassettes to our apartment, listened to them, and it was some amazing music. We wanted to do something different, not be a regular bass, drums, and two guitars band.
How did you hook up with legendary Turkish musician Selda Bağcan?
There was a festival in Tel Aviv in 2014 and we wanted to have a special guest. I used to play with a band from New York, called Firewater, and in 2007, Tod Ashley, from Firewater, sent me a few Turkish Rock compilations—like Anatolian rock—and it really blew my mind. I was listening to it a lot, and taking a lot of inspiration. It sounded so familiar, and was very much like ‘60s Israeli rock. People were playing their own folk music, and mixing it with music they heard from the U.K. and the States. That happened all over the world. But the stuff that came out in Turkey, that fusion of Anatolian music and rock ’n’ roll, just blew my mind. There were a few songs of Selda Bağcan’s on those compilations, and I started to dig for more of her music. In 2014, we were looking for a special guest for our show at this festival, and we decided to try to contact Selda. Our management managed to contact her and invite her. She came to Israel for a couple of rehearsals and played a few songs with us. She was not really performing at that time.
She had retired?
She was kind of retired, but then she decided to start playing again. We went to Turkey to play with her many times after that.
Were the Turkish audiences receptive?
They could not believe that they were seeing her performing live again. She’s a legend, and the young generations really admire her, because she’s a rebel. She’s an old rebel, fighting for lots of important things in Turkey, still, and she says what she thinks. She is not afraid of Erdogan and his people. She’s still fighting for democracy and stuff.
Do the authorities leave her alone?
They leave her alone. She’s kind of untouchable, she’s that popular.
What’s the story behind Ouzo Bazooka?
It started as a sort of solo project, but then quite fast, with the guys who played with me, it felt natural to call it a band. Only one of them survived—Dani Ever Hadani, the keyboard player—the others left at a certain point. It came from rock ’n’ roll. I wanted to do something that was more rock oriented. The sound that I had in my mind didn’t really fit with what we were doing with Boom Pam, so I decided to start something new. I wanted to do something that was more like the music that I was listening to in those years, which was rock music from all over the world, but not from the U.S. or U.K., but all those weird mixtures of rock ’n' roll with any kind of folk music. Like from South America, the Far East, Turkey, Greece, the Netherlands—all those weird mixtures—you listen, and it is rock ’n’ roll, but you get a little dizzy because something is not right, but in a charming way. It’s even from places like Nigeria. Africa has amazing rock bands. Anywhere you look, in `the 1960s and ‘70s, everyone wanted to do it.
With your songwriting, are you purposely trying to fuze these worlds, or is it more organic?
It comes more naturally than trying to do something that sounds like American music. For me, personally, I don’t think that I can play American rock ’n’ roll or blues as good as someone who grew up only on that kind of music. With my generation, and especially the younger generation, you can live in one place and grow up on the folk music from the other side of the world. It doesn’t really mater anymore. But when I was about 17 or 18, I listened to a lot of blues and played a lot of blues, but in a way, I felt as if I was not connected enough to that music. Not that it has to be mine, but in a way, I was looking for something where I could feel more connected to where I am from.
The Arabic and Mediterranean musics are in the air in Israel.
Definitely. Even if you don’t listen to it, you get it on the TV and the radio. Throughout the years, there were bands here who were mixing east and west, naturally.
But it wasn’t getting much airplay until recently.
Yeah, definitely.
What change? Is the younger generation just more open to it?
Everything was run by Ashkenazi people.
It was Ashko-centric?
That’s also with the government, too.
What happened, as the country evolved it became more diverse? As Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews assumed positions of power they began to assert themselves?
It is a natural thing and it is amazing. People here are racist, but there are some people who are more open-minded. Ashkenazi people are marrying Mizrahi people, and then the next generation, they don’t care about it anymore. Finally, we’ve arrived at this point, and it’s amazing. But now, there are people from Ethiopia who still have to integrate—they’re still not mixed enough and also suffering from racism here—it takes time. It just takes time. But that’s the way to get world peace, I think, global peace. Just to mix with everyone. I always say, maybe it’s ok to sacrifice your roots in order to look forward and see a better future. It’s a big sacrifice, very big, but if it means that we let ourselves mix with anyone from anywhere—and by mix, I mean marry and make children—then in a few generations, there will be no difference.
One can argue that music does that, too.
Exactly, music is totally borderless. When people ask me for my influences, I can’t just drop five names.
Because it’s everything from Black Sabbath to Selda Bağcan.
Exactly.
How did you hook up with Yurika Hanashima?
I met Yurika in 2014 in Tokyo, when we played there with Boom Pam. She then came to Israel, and we wanted to add a dancer to one of our shows. Dan, our manager, contacted her and we invited her to dance with us. But then I realized that she also sings. There was one tour with Ouzo Bazooka that our keyboard player was unable to make. We played as a trio—bass, guitar, and drums—and we invited Yurika to tour with us, to dance, sing, and play some tambourine. She’s done a few tours with Ouzo Bazooka.
Is she a member of the band?
Formally, not really, because she is in Tokyo and we’re in Israel. We don’t play with her all the time, but it feels like she is a part of the band. She was not here with us to record the albums and to rehearse. She’s part of the touring band.
Do you also do a lot of production and work with other artists in your studio?
The last big thing I did was with Liraz. I also work with some Israeli singer-songwriters, producing songs for them, mixing, stuff like that. I also do all the Ouzo Bazooka and Boom Pam recordings and mixing here in my studio.
Do you do a lot of sideman work, too, or just a few bands?
I just started recently. None of the bands are very active now, but we’re working on music. There is Boom Pam and Ouzo Bazooka. With Boom Pam, we recorded a children’s album recently with Karolina and Maor Cohen—two amazing local vocalists—and then there is Shotnez (with Ori Kaplam). I have another project with Kutiman and Elran Dekel from Funk'N'Stein. We recently released some music under the name, Hibiscus, but the new music is going to come out under another name.
What are your plans for after COVID?
I don’t know. I expect nothing. Maybe it is the end of live performances. I don’t care at this point. Whatever is going to happen is ok, it’s fine by me. It’s too hard to just expect everything to pass. It’s been a while. In a way, I kind of enjoy not touring, staying at home, and making music. I was touring for 20 years almost nonstop. As long as I make music with people, and people can still listen to it at home, it’s fine. I do think that live music has much more impact on people than recorded music, but live music doesn’t necessarily have to be commercial. It’s also ok if I jam with friends and we have an audience of 20 people. That’s also fine. It doesn’t have to be a huge festival and ticket sales and big stages. Maybe that’s where we’re going, and it’s fine by me, as long as people are still playing and attending any kind of concerts, even if it’s not commercial. Maybe I will have to find another thing to do in order to make a living, but it’s fine, I don’t care.
Are you getting enough work now with the studio?
At this point, yes, and I am really thankful that I still have work and everything is kind of fine. People are still making music. Some of the people I work with are not professional musicians, they just need somebody to produce their albums. They are not necessarily thinking that they are going to be the next big star. There is something that I really appreciate about that. It’s not about yourself, and it’s not about making money, and it’s not about success. It’s just about making music, letting it out, and finding your crowd, even it if it’s not millions of people. That’s totally fine.
It’s a very honest expression.
Yeah, I really relate to it.
Photos courtesy Uri Brauner Kinrot
Playlists!
If you’re looking to go deeper into the world of Israeli psych, check out this playlist featuring more music from Boom Pam—including videos from their concerts with Selda Bağcan—and Ouzo Bazooka.
Also, don’t forget the Ingathering playlist of featured artists, which is updated weekly. The playlist is a collection of everyone we speak to. It’s hours of great music. You need this.
And while you’re at it, remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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