Travelling Tribes: Artificial Moonlights

Release date: 24th of November 2014

The critically acclaimed Copenhagen based quartet Travelling Tribes who are known for their ecclectic and psychedelic musical universe, are now releasing their second album. The title, ’Artificial Moonlights’ points to the way in which the band blends acoustic, digital and sampled sounds together in a way that leaves the listener fascinated and unable to detect exactly how the music has come to life.

The Gamelan, an Indonesian ensemble of percussion instruments, plays a vital part on the album. In the band's everlasting search through the music of the world, they found that the Gamelan perfectly captured their fascination with the mysterious, crooked and creaking expression that they wanted for the album. They borrowed a truck load of Gamelans from the Indonesian Embassy in Copenhagen and spent the next two months composing, using the Gamelans.

"We don't want to sound like four Danes playing Indonesian music - we want to sound like ourselves, so every sound is manipulated so that the listener won't automatically be able to identify how the music has been made. It forces the listener to be intuitive about the music rather than analytical," says Victor Dybbroe (Drums).

"We mixed the sounds from the Gamelan with that of the other instruments to create a new and indecipherable sound. We are all fascinated with the contrasts between the artificial and natural, and the manipulated and the organic - hence the artificial moonlights," says Anders Filipsen (Keys and Vocal).