By Morgan Rousseau
They consider it “Progressive Ethno-Fusion,” while others would call it ideal late-night entertainment for the college aged youth of New York City. The eclecticism reflected in their music is ever-present in New York, from the Turkish corner store to the Indian restaurant a few blocks away. Consider The Source is a band that appreciates the layers of cultural dimensions that make up their city. Thanks to their relentless dedication and independent promotion, CTS plans to make this their year to shine.
On Nov. 10 at The Village Underground on West Third St. guitarist Gabriel Marin, a tall young man with classic rock star shoulder length blonde hair, shows off a distinctive style of playing his fretless guitar – hunched over and eyes closed, clearly lost in a musical realm of his own making. A Hunter College alum, Gabriel, 25, hails from the Upper West Side in Manhattan, but met fellow band mates and Queens natives John Ferrara and Justin Ahiyon, both 24, through a heavy rock circuit of musicians when they were in their mid-teens.
Bassist John and drummer Justin, both Queens College alumni and Oakland Garden natives, perform with a mesmerizing ability to raise your heart rate with steady, growing energetic rhythms. Justin’s vigorous drumming combined with a hot, cramped venue like The Village Underground prompts him to go shirtless mid-set. They are hard to miss, even through the smoky air of the tiny club. Sweaty and furiously thrashing, something in their music still manages to come across as serene. Most likely it’s the Eastern tint in their musical style.
Something all three of these young men have in common, though, is their down-to-earth modesty. They smile and hug members of the audience when their set ends. They even hit up near-by bars, inviting everyone in attendance to tear it up with a late night after party. Their amicable reverence for each other is nearly tangible. These guys share an unspoken relationship for each other, thanks to their music.
“We’ve become friends through the music. The three of us have a unique style on our instruments,” Gabriel said in reflection of the band’s roots. CTS began at a party one night about three years ago when Gabriel and Justin started jamming together. “He was the only other person that was into Turkish music,” said Gabriel. Soon after they brought John into the mix.
What culminated was, as Justin put it, “a dynamic connection in music,” so the musicians decided to make it official. They named their band, started recording their improvisations and booked venues.
Their use of Indian and Mid-Eastern musical style comes straight from the source – in January 2006 Gabriel and Justin traveled to India in search of authentic lessons in life and the exotic music of the land. They proudly announced on their homepage, considerthemusic.com that “we're traveling across the globe with our instruments, in pursuit of music and inspiration.” According to Gabriel, “The trip didn’t change our style as much as it reconfirmed that it was the direction we wanted to go in.”
While in India the pair crashed with the musical Gurus they were studying under in Calcutta, and at other times stayed in cockroach ridden youth hostiles. They were completely submerged in the poverty and chaos of the city, but took it as a learning experience. After a thirty-three hour journey to the South, they were pleased to stay in a decent apartment with other percussion students. They opened their minds, and tuned into the teachings of the East in the hope of brining a newfound strength to their music.
And so they did, only to return to the U.S with a deeper connection to the music of the Far East, and a spirituality that beckoned them to explore the idea of genre bending.
According to Gabriel, this aspect of their music includes Bulgarian folk tunes, Jewish folk music, Northern and Southern Indian classical music, Persian music, Turkish music and American jazz and heavy metal undertones. “We all grew up playing jazz, and I was really into classical, too,” Gabriel said. “[The fusion] comes from the metal, jazz and classical music in our blood. We were a fusion band for a year and a half before we went.
John picked up on his band mates’ enthusiasm for the sound right away. “It’s rhythmic, and in-depth. Once it was exposed, we had to explore it,” he said.
Justin described Indo-Eastern music as having the ability to “make you leave yourself,” like a vehicle for spiritual transportation. Once they started applying this aspect to their improvisational jamming, the two sounds of East and West just fell together.
With no lead singer, the band compensates for their absence of vocals with the sporadic insertion of one-liners from an electronic sampler, mostly in the form of quotations from the movie “Borat.” CTS said they are inspired by movies, and enjoy having a sense of humor when they perform because it lightens up their performance, and gets a kick out of the crowd. John said that the band is an instrumental trio that has no problem taking risks with their audience. He said that their strong instrumentation works for them because they have open-minded fans that produce what Justin considers “an atmosphere of love.”
“They are throwing love at us, and it inspires us to give it back,” he said, with a sudden surge of excitement. Justin then went on to describe the key ingredient to their crowd stimulating ability – he and his band mates thrive on the energy of the audience during live performances. Justin feels that fans may be disappointed with their studio albums after experiencing the invigoration of high-energy music at their live sets. Their studio album doesn’t quite capture that lively, improvisational peak that defines their live set. The band agrees that their albums may be more subdued and less captivating than their live performances, so the band’s next album will be recorded during a live New York show set for Feb. 2008, date to be announced. At the present time the band is focusing on promotion and publicity, and in turn they are taking a breath from booking many upcoming shows. Their next performance will be on Dec. 18 in Philadelphia, but they announce new shows on their Myspace Music site, http://www.myspace.com/considerthemusic, or considerthemusic.com where their two albums, Esperanto (2006) and Consider The Source (2005), can also be purchased.
As published in the Queens Times Ledger
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