photo: Taylor Marie (@milkandpeonies)

Two men, David Satori and Evan Fraser, transform the Britt Festival stage into a world music sound sample tasting. Some sounds stem from simple gourds, blocks of wood, and metal prongs from around the globe. But it’s high-end musical alchemy they create, and the fibers of each simple instrument are infused with electricity in bodies never intended to feel that twitch metal pulse. They intermingle on stage with theremins, space fiddles, melodicas and the far reaches of sound technology. Electronic bass beats hold this musical experiment together with a foundation rooted in the heartbeat of the Earth—the rich soil from which all things grow.

Each song explores a new pairing of sounds. They start with Evan Fraser on a West African kamale ngonis (an African harp made from a gourd and fishing line) and David Satori on a space fiddle. An odd pairing but beautiful. The sweet, high sounds have a friendship. I suspect they’ve sung in the breeze between Africa and Europe from different rooms smelling the same sunrise. The men switch to a slide guitar and harmonica. These sounds have known each other a long time, though the resonant vibratory electricity running through them is novel.

Indian flavors fill the outdoor amphitheater. I close my eyes to better hear the music. It sounds like Ganesha with many hands playing a dozen instruments. I open my eyes to see one man, David Satori, in a black cowboy hat playing an electric banjo with a violin bow. There’s longing and yearning in these tones. It stretches across an ocean that spans the psyche and speaks to the center of the universe. The conversation is interrupted by a back porch rocking chair pumping furiously, sweatin’ a deep south dialect as the banjo’s bow turns to a pluck and the jaw harp joins in for a funky swamptronica interlude.

It’s a concoction I’ve never seen on stage, nor imagined. A backdrop of deep house beats mixes these odd ingredients into a masterpiece of flavors—not only unfamiliar with each other sharing the same bowl, but unfamiliar with the bowl.

What follows is no less spectacular: a melodica, electric kalimba, tambourine, percussion, whamola bass, cow bell, Rickenbacker electric 12-string guitar, a pungi flute enticing cobras out of a metaphorical basket. Satori plays the literal air and space around a theremin, slapping the ether into the mix of sound. Everything is layered over laptop generated beats in a fluent conversation with a mother’s heartbeat from inside the womb—the one none of us remember, but we all recognize.

An indigenous woman dances to numerous songs with feathered wings, and the beaded visible heartbeat of a people. She spins and twirls at a dizzying pace. I sit down as to not fall off this teetering beauty of a ride.

The sound moves through me like thick bodies of water. A flute acts as a dog whistle for the universal soul; I believe it’s my species it’s calling. It turns back to the south. A New Orleans marching band whistles for a parade, but the slow longing waves remain, filling the sails, while the heartbeat pulse tempers its steps. Patience and urgency intermingle. Dark and light have a barbecue with ancient tongues and a beer. Every deity I’ve ever known is tucked inside this sound and playing in a sandbox of time, rhythm and bass.

I close my eyes again and feel this music cure me from the inside. There’s no place these vibrations don’t touch. I hear a new beat walk across the rhythm with an odd step. I open my eyes to see Evan Fraser beating 2 drumsticks against the space fiddle held by David Satori who’s playing the same instrument with a bow. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t expect any of it. It’s a blind taste test of flavors I’ve never imagined, awakening tastebuds capable of tasting color. The fluorescents are delicious, and the earth tones an unctuous dessert for the soul. I’d give it 5 stars, but I believe this duo is rated in galaxies and curiosity.