Yonatan Gat Shares New LP On Tidal – ‘Universalists’

Prior to this, Yonatan Gat shared Universalists’ opening track “Cue the Machines“. The undefinable track opens with an Italo-Spanish choir recorded by Alan Lomax in 1950s Genoa – but it only takes 20 seconds for the voices get manipulated, chopped and mangled beyond recognition into stuttering rhythms below Yonatan’s live band – guitar, bass, saxophone and drums working up an uncontrollable maelstrom of punk and free jazz.

Since his days as co-founder of legendary Israeli garage-rockers Monotonix, Gat’s music has always had a strong sense of chaos. Getting his start in a band that was wild enough to get banned from their home country has certainly sipped into Gat’s manner as a bandleader. And the far-and-wide world travels that come with playing over 1500 shows in 50 countries and 5 continents made another mark on his sound.

Nevertheless, there is peace to be found at the center of that chaos, as articulated in Gat’s previous single “Medicine“ and the video that accompanied it, featuring the Algonquin Native American group Eastern Medicine Singers. The track, along with previous face-melting single “Cockfight” (which took its cue from Balinese gamelan), as well as seven other tracks, will be featured on his forthcoming album ‘Universalists’ out May 4th on Joyful Noise Recordings (US) and Glitterbeat (EU).

Universalists lists numerous collaborators, the most important of which being Silver Jews frontman David Berman credited as album co-producer, in a rare collaboration during a quiet 10 year period. “We were talking about how to contain the live energy in a studio recording,” recounts Gat, “Berman was there all along, encouraging me to edit like a writer, filmmaker or painter does. To break the cycle, to capture live energy into wax we talked about subjecting fiery performance to post production, which is another way of saying being hard on yourself.”

Leading the release of the 3-year-in-the-making highly anticipated LP, Yonatan will perform a unique concert in NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge which he describes as “immersive”, in which different musical projects—all led by Gat—will all be playing separate sets in different parts of the venue, blending into each other with no breaks between the sets. Opening the night will be legendary jazz double bassist, multi-instrumentalist, poet and composer William Parker. Lineup:

– Yonatan Gat Quartet (ft. Swans’ Thor Harris on vibes and trombone) 9
– Yonatan Gat & The Eastern Medicine Singers 8:15
– Yonatan Gat Plays Antonín Dvořák’s 19th Century “American Quartet” (Second Movement) 8
– William Parker (solo double-bass) 7:30

More tour dates listed below. Pre-order the LP here!