Each of the four nights of this year’s Millpond Live series will lead you on a musical journey filled with surprise and delight, stirring your soul and your spirit. The music will get your heart beating and your hips shaking. When we book the artists for Millpond Live we go for a variety of genres and exciting juxtapositions. We weigh authenticity, talent, and a certain something we can’t quite name to create a show that is more than the sum of its parts and that will stay with you. Then there’s the beer, food, craft vendors, friends and families that add up to the kind of gathering that we all need so much these days. It’s also free, thanks to generous donations and grants from organizations that support and depend on all of you and see the value in making possible an event that reminds us who we are as individuals and as a community.
Visit the event website at millpond.live.
Puuluup
The Estonian nu-folk duo Puuluup, made up of Ramo Teder and Marko Veisson, self-identify as “post zombie folk talharpa rebels”, and describe their work as surrealism and modern folklore mixed with talharpa, a bowed lyre popular in Northern Europe during the Middle Ages. The two playfully combine these traditional instruments with loops and modern electronic effects, otherworldly harmonies, and quirky lyrics inspired by unlikely subjects including Polish TV heroes, zombies, old Estonian punk, and even a hypothetical run-in with a neighbor’s dog while taking out the trash. ”By the time they demonstrate the two-step dance-along for one of their closers, the growing audience needs no convincing. It’s folk, it’s contemporary, it’s funny, and it’s danceable.” – Under The Radar
DakhaBrakha
DakhaBrakha is a global music quartet from Kyiv, Ukraine. Reflecting fundamental elements of The Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha calls itself "ethno-chaos." Over the past decade, this Ukrainian-folk-meets-punk group has brought their music to audiences around the world. For years, DakhaBrakha has called themselves "ambassadors of free Ukraine." Their shows have been punctuated with cries of "Stop Putin!" and "No war!" Now, they hear those demands reflected and amplified around the world.
This quartet's name means "give/take" in old Ukrainian – and that's exactly what they do. Cabaret, jazz, rock and hip-hop are all part of the band's DNA. But they also explore all kinds of old Ukrainian folk styles, fed through the prism of the 21st century.
When DakhaBrakha first hit the international scene about a decade ago, they wore unforgettable tall, angular hats and rich costumes that evoked an array of Ukrainian ethnic styles. Their music was fierce, exuberant and understitched with humor. They were playful.
But for this current tour, the group has had to take on a far more serious and urgent tone. Halanevych says the band hopes their audiences understand the need for that shift. As it turns out, the band had no reason to worry about the American audience's response. At the end of a recent show, the audience stood – and some sang along – as the band sang the Ukrainian national anthem.
Son Rompe Pera
Son Rompe Pera is the Gogol Bordello of cumbia; the essence of cumbia punk. You’ve heard marimbas before, and garage rock, and cumbia. But here is a new genre of music from Mexico City that did not exist before this band did: garage-marimba-cumbia-punk. Think of the Misfits with cha-cha-cha and psychedelia – More danceable but equally punk. A pan-Latin psychobilly that must be seen live.
The three Gama brothers grew up playing the folkloric marimba with their father, often busking with him on the streets from morning to evening. It’s a remarkable story – working class musicians growing up in a folk tradition who, through raw creativity and punk spirit, dismantled this inherited sound and reinvented it through the vehicle of cumbia. Their music and style brings in an audience as wide-ranging as working-class Mexicans, global music lovers, and young hipsters. We first welcomed Son Rompe Pera at the Barbès in the Woods fest last year and confirmed the rumors. They are in fact one of the best live acts on the planet right now.
