Sunday, April 7, 2013

Parov Stelar: Groovy Electro Cat

In a moment of serendipity, I discovered the Parov Stelar Band a few weeks before their scheduled show at the Rialto Theatre on April 19th. Usually it works the other way around: I will discover a new artist and think, "I wonder if they are coming to town soon...oh, Tucson is listed on their concert calendar...for last Thursday..." But not this time, fate! This time I am ahead of the game.

One of the reasons I love electronic music is the eagerness of artists to throw genres into a cauldron and create wonderful magic from the ingredients. Consider Parov Stelar, a producer whose music I would label as "electro-swing." Stelar (real name Marcus Füreder of Austria) mixes samples of old-time jazz and swing that have my feet tapping away as I write this post. Blaring horns, groovy sax, soulful lyrics...this is music distilled to its purest form!
"But library blogger," you might be thinking "I'm not the biggest electronic music fan and have no desire to pay my hard-earned money to see a DJ perform." Well, hear me out. As if I needed more reason to be excited for this show, I learned through my internet research that Parov Stelar tours with live musicians (at a minimum, sax and trumpet), lifting the performance above a turntable tour to the genre-bending spectacle I touted above. One concert review was amazed at the diversity of the audience, from normal folks to ravers wearing glowsticks around their necks and sharp-dressed couples swing dancing on the floor!
Freegal Music has a small selection of Parov Stelar songs for download, which coincides nicely with the three-song limit a week! Chambermaid Swing has the grooviest horn solo and Goodbye Emily is a soulful number that showcases Parov Stelar's lyrical pieces. Hopefully you like what you hear and maybe I'll see you dancing away at the show!

-James

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