Album de la semaine : The Apples - Fly On It

The Apples - Fly On It

Interview de The Apples, par Gil Karpas de Slate The Disco

The early part of this century was a fertile time for music. Old ideas were breaking down and new ones were growing from their decomposing matter. From these green shoots of the new millennium came a spirit that the old traditions were reborn in the DNA of new live music. The breath of new day and the breeze of a new morning blew through the horns and with that the sound of muscular brass barked. DJs scratched up the skin, hair and nails and a beating heart of a heavy rhythm section bust this new body of sound on to a skeleton. The Apples burst on to the post Y2K world in the millennial meltdown of musical barriers. The internet age was here and rolling out in a wave of fusions, culture, music, ideas and criss-crossing connections. Just ahead of the wave were a bunch of musicians from different cities in Israel, all independently doing their own thing, until fate, chance or divine intervention (chose whichever you see fit) catalysed them together…and as I found out from chatting to the powerhouse drum-meister Yonadav Halevy, The Apples were very organic.

“The band came about from friends and connections. Some grew up in the Haifa Scene, other from the Jerusalem music academy, others from the Tel Aviv DJ club scene”

I asked what was the settings that brought them all together. The Radio Trip DJs, the 4-piece horn section and the double drums and bass duo…

“We first met at sessions, Jams, improvs and so on, it was something that came together bit by bit. Soon we had a regular work-out going on, it was organically on the scene that we first started cutting the blueprints of a band and then by the end of 2002, our first album. What I would call our first real gig, was the album release party.”

Its easy to get confused. These were hectic times. I asked, whether the album or the gigs came first and how did this fit with the notion of a band?

“We’d been gigging for a year at these sessions and so on, but the album came about as a result of 2 of us moving away. We felt that before they did that we had to catch the moment and the music we had made. So the album was a way that we could capture that magic. Once we heard it back, we felt inspired and then things changed. We realised what we had”

“MITZ” (Hebrew for Juice) was released on the Bumbaklaat label in early 2003 and their fate was sealed. Ever since this genesis on the vibrant Israeli gig scene, The Apples had just come together around the creative force of music. With the positive reaction from the band and the public to the first album. It only followed that there should be a follow on. The guys got back to the lab and got to work on their second album. By now, word was getting round that from somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean, the voice of a new band was beginning to make waves.

Their second album “ATTENTION” certainly grabbed just that.

“We hooked up a deal for a single on Freestyle Records label out of London. One thing led to another and now we’ve released two albums with the Label. “Buzzin About” and “The Apples Present: Kings”

This label is famed the world over for being purveyors of the heaviest dancefloor cuts from the international Funk and Jazz scene. There are a few other great brass bands coming about such as the Hot 8 Brass Band, The Youngblood Brass Band and the Hackney Colliery Band. Yet with so many different elements to the band, I felt compelled to ask; “what do you consider yourselves to be musically?”

“Post Funk” states Yonadav clearly. “and we’re more on the fringe”

The Apples are definitely worth the ticket, I’ve met them, I’ve written about them, I’ve seen them gig, I’ve got their records and lots of people I know and the new ones I meet all say the same thing; When it comes to energy, a show, music and a party, The Apples are it. What’s-more they are forging ahead into this new century with all the creative force of the birth as the soundwave moves outwards, onwards and forwards, they just keep on playing, keep on mixing it up and keep on blasting the brass. 

Line Up :

Offer "Schoolmaster" Tal

Uri "Mixmonster" Wertheim

Yonadav Halevy

Yaron Ouzana

Arthur Krasnobaev

Oleg Nayman

Yakir Sasson

Erez Todres

Alon Carmelly

Label :

Freestyle Records

Tracklist :

01 – Preserve

02 – Fly On It

03 – Sixth Stream

04 – Thang

05 – Rhinocerize

06 – Looking For Trouble

07 – Powder

08 – Do The Car Horn