Niko Ne Zna plays original music as well as classic songs from the Romani-soaked Balkan states. Photo / Supplied
Niko Ne Zna plays original music as well as classic songs from the Romani-soaked Balkan states. Photo / Supplied
Balkan brass band Niko Ne Zna is heading to Palmerston North to get music lovers out of their seats and dancing.
The nine-piece world music group performs hypnotic melodies and cerebral rhythms that draw from the Balkan region.
Its current line-up consists of two trumpets, soprano saxophone, bass and tenortrombones, sousaphone, Balkan bass drum (tapan) and snare drum.
The Wellington-based band is 10 years old, had three of its original songs featured in the film What We Do In The Shadows, and has released two albums.
Vocalist/percussionist Nikkie Rich sings in multiple languages, including Serbo-Croatian, Romani, Macedonian, Greek and English.
Playing original music as well as classic songs from the Romani-soaked Balkan states, Niko Ne Zna will set even the most rhythmically challenged moving and grooving, Rich says. The theatre is removing the front three rows to make plenty of room for dancing.
The band has also performed at Womad and World of WearableArt (WOW).
"It's easy to forget where you are when you listen to these hypnotic melodies. It's like being dropped among the hot and spicy lands of a country far away - to a place where you can free yourself with these infectious and wild beats that take their influence from the gypsy-soaked Balkan states."
