Fans of African rhythms and reggae and bluegrass beats will catch a break Thursday night at a free concert featuring the band Round Mountain.
Brothers and band mates, Char and Robby Rothschild will be playing several instruments each, some simultaneously, during the 8 p.m. concert at Linnaea’s Cafe.
As Robby put it, the band has made a point to stop on the Central Coast because “a lot of times people focus on the big cities but we’ve found a lot more receptive audiences, in certain cases, in smaller places.”
The reasons, he said, are complex.
“For one thing I think people are less jaded, they don’t get quite as many (performances) to start with,” he said. “With the younger audience it’s more of a vibrant kind of thing. I’m excited to play there.”
Char (short for Charlie) said the band’s unique fusion of styles is a bit of a balancing act. In accomplishing a harmonious blend of the music encountered during their travels in, among other locations, West Africa, the Middle East, Ireland, Great Britain, Japan and Australia, they sought advice from kindred sprits.
“One of the keys to what we’re doing is in finding that balance,” Char said. “One of the people who really influenced us in this particular pursuit was Andy Irvine, who’s best known for his work with the band Planxty in the 1970s and late ’60s. He and his friends really brought (what became) the Irish bouzouki into Ireland from Greece.”
He added that Irvine told them, “It’s about doing it with taste, finding the places where these musical traditions come together.”
“In finding where these come together it has always been of utmost importance to use good taste,” Char said. “It’s amazing where those places really are. A lot of music from India northward has some ornaments (flourishes that serve to decorate the line) that are really surprisingly similar.”
He attributes these parallels to the travel and cultural exchange of human populations such as the Roma who spread modalities and themes across whole continents over time.
The band sees the blend of traditions on stage as symbolic of the mixing of peoples; it is apparent in the staples of their set, which feature influences of bluegrass, Bulgarian zydeco and Appalachian roots.
A good example featured on their set list, “Burn it Down,” is illustrative of this crossover and is played on the West African kora (a 21-string harp). The song is available to preview on the band’s MySpace page.
The music the brothers create is tailor made to communicate an experience. “A lot of people from world traditions really focus on the virtuosity of these particular traditions and our slant is more about the songs and the emotion and the feeling of what we’ve had in our lives together and where we’re trying to come from with it,” Robby said.
To that end, the audience is part of the experience.
“We don’t really do the same thing every night just because we’re playing so many different kinds of rooms. So we don’t really know what it will be like until we get to Linnaea’s. The songs themselves are kind of at the center of what we do and we’ll try to find the balance for that room,” he said.
Round Mountain will play tonight at 8 p.m. at Linnaea’s Café at 1110 Garden Street.