10-Year Anniversary Celebration Techno-Tribal Dance Two Nights of Legendary Music and Performance Troupes

Harmony After Dark celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the legendary Techno-Tribal Dance and its bedazzling celebrations of music, underground dance culture, art and performance! This year, two captivating evenings transport audiences to the new edge of sound and light where it meets technology and talent. It’s an unforgettable, full spectrum immersion beginning on Friday, June 12th with stage scorching headliner Balkan Beat Box and their distinctive hybrid musical form that merges the Gypsy Diaspora with hip-hop, dancehall beats and Jamaican dub.

Balkan Beat Box is the world music group founded by ex-Gogol Bordello member Ori Kaplan, Tamir Muskat of Firewater and Big Lazy, and Tomer Yosef (MC, vocals, perc, sampler unit). As a musical project they often cooperate with a host of other musicians both in the studio as well as on stage. Their current live crew consist of Tomer Yosef, Ben Hendler, Itamar Ziegler, Eyal Talmudi, Uri Kinrot, Jeremiah Lockwood, and Peter Hess. Amongst their other collaborators are Victoria Hannah, the Bulgarian Chicks, and gnawa player Hassan Ben Jaffar.

Supporting acts include Somalia-born hip hop artist K’naan whose stylings merge conscious American hip hop with brilliant protest poetry. Describe as Kanye West meets Bob Marley K’naan about survival during his childhood in war ravaged Somalia, pays tribute to his mother, focuses on the plight of the millionsin need instead of one person’s trouble with turf issues.

Also opening the evening is the bass-driven tribal grooves of Medicine Drum (with guest Wisdom). Founded in 1994, and returning to the stage after a 3-year hiatus, Medicine drum are recognized as one of the early music pioneers to cross the boundaries of electronica, where organic meets digital. Not quite psy-trance, not quite techno and not quite future-dub, Medicine Drum blend all these styles while interlacing them with driving, earthy tribal percussion and world music influences.

Closing the evening is the Bay Area rising star, DJ producer/multi-instrumentalist Random Rab. His eclectic mixes features original tunes with the unshakable common denominator of being definitively and decidedly all about dance. From downtempo dripping-with-soul electronica to bass crunching techno drivers Rab is certain to cover the entire movement and emotional spectrum.

Once a year there comes a Saturday night like no other, when the fabulous Techno-Tribal Dance takes flight in 21st Century sound and light in the vast cathedral of Grace Pavilion. A sea of costumed, dancing people celebrate the moment to the music of top electronica artists, their eyes filled with jewels by a full spectrum laser array and vast airy beings that hang in space, painted with light and sailing in the sound field. Fire spinners dazzle the eye as daring aerialists soar through the dark reaches above the pulsing crowd, whose bones vibrate with massive bass beats.

Grace Pavilion showcases the multi-genre trance inductions of DJ/Producer Shpongle in a very special, first ever collaboration with special guest Matisyahu. No stranger to the electronica scene Matisyahu’s leanings toward reggae, hip-hop, gypsy and powerful spiritual rhymes become the overtone to Shpongle’s Easts-meets-West-meets dub and trance. Their set is certain to raise the roof which, considering the magnitude of the hallows of Grace pavilion, also means a performance that’s altogether floor raising, barnstorming and crowd levitating!

Preceeding acts include the dub-reggae driven house and breaks of U.K. producer/performer/DJ Gaudi. With a discography of 11 albums to his name Gaudi unleashes a sonic maelstrom of original tracks that incorporate strafings of samples, whirly dub sirens, vocal stylings and the occasional whip of the theremin. His set is a combination of showmanship and massive beats that’ll keep the audience poised for the prose of massive grooves.

Opening the night is Bay Area freestyling artist Abai whose bass bonking excursions are heard on his albumn Fearless. Self described as “a cultural alchemy – a spell cast from our time’s most revolutionary of sounds – dubstep and hip hop meets a burner breaks delivery with catchy, bass-heavy instrumentation and dare-we-say, pop music sensibility”.

Closing the evening are U.K. chillout pioneers The Orb. Founded in 1988 the Orb single handedly defined the genre of Ambient House music as they offered clubbers a respite from big sounds systems by crafting a sonic sanctuary of trippy, dub, loop and sample based music. Their performances were often coupled with psychedelic imagery and colorful light shows prompting the response that they were the new Pink Floyd of the electronica era. At Techno tribal these legendary veterans of the dance scene will drop both classic and new tracks as the grand exhale of an otherwise happily hyperventilating wall of sound.