Desert Daze presents:
Yonatan Gat & The Eastern Medicine Singers
William Tyler
Ryan Pollie
"Unforgettable chaos. One of the most incredible performances you'll ever see." - NPR
“A type of bodily experience that transcends mere observation." - Exclaim!
"You’ve never seen anything like it before.” - SPIN
Watch video on Nowness:
https://www.nowness.com/story/medicine-gigi-ben-artzi-yonatan-gat-eastern-medicine-singers
Medicine (90 minute immersive set) by Yonatan Gat & EMS
-----------------------------------------------------------
Yonatan Gat is a genre all to his own. The NYC composer was featured prominently in the NY Times, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, People Magazine, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Nowness, The Wire, SPIN, Uncut, VICE, NPR and more. Exclaim described Gat’s performances as “a master class in genre-defying improvisation, allowing the audience to see every move in exquisite detail.” In 2013, The Village Voice voted him “Best Guitarist in New York”.
Looking back on 15 years in the nexus of experimental music and performance art, Gat was born in Tel Aviv. He first came to the international spotlight as founder of Monotonix, which SPIN hailed as “the most exciting live band in rock’n’roll”. The group got banned from playing shows in their home country and following its dissolution, as a conscientious objector to its military service, Gat left Israel and based his career in New York, collaborating with some of the experimental’s scenes finest musicians such as Brian Chase (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and Thor Harris (Swans).
His billboard-charting sophomore LP, 2018’s Universalists was a psychedelic opus that PopMatters called “a bold new idea on what to do with rock”. Upon its release, Gat introduced the career-redefining performance of Medicine, which features up to 9 musicians and integrates the hypnotic drumming and chants of mysterious Algonquin pow wow group the Eastern Medicine Singers into a collaborative powerhouse hellbent on further redefining the concert experience.
The collaboration started in a chance encounter at SXSW where Gat saw the Eastern Medicine Singers playing in the street. In his own words: “First time I saw the Eastern Medicine Singers they were playing outside the venue just before we went on. I loved their music and asked if they wanted to join us. We never met before, and they immediately replied – ‘no’. I suggested they can decide after they hear the music, and by the second song I noticed them hauling their gigantic drum inside. My trio performs on the floor, so we formed two circles inside the audience – their group and ours with the audience surrounding both bands. The crowd were banging on the musicians’ backs – crying, dancing, trancing. Chief Daryl Black Eagle, Artie Red Medicine, Dean Running Dear, Ray Two Hawks, Harry Grey Owl and me remained close friends, and our collaboration took on a life of its own.”