When four opinionated musical minds trade comfort for collaboration, the result is this handpan-centric jazz odyssey that defies easy categorization. Welcome to the world of floating sheep. Read our discussion below!
Describe your sound in 3 words
Experimental, organic, hypnotic
Tell us a main few things about your album. What is the idea behind it?
We produced and composed this album together, changing it constantly until it felt complete. This band is combined of four strong opinionated and very different human beings. Creating this album together was often challenging, and sometimes even frustrating, however finding the balance between us, led to this piece of music that non of us could create on his own.
It is an album that we are very proud of, filled with complex harmonies, deep sound design and intricate rhythms.
The idea of the album kept changing through work as the music did, and in a way that’s the idea itself – keeping our minds flexible and allowing our individual voices to merge into a single, cohesive world. It’s an invitation for the listener to be just as fluid, moving through these complex landscapes with us and discovering something new in every layer
You describe your sound as blending “ceremonial organic sounds” with electronics. What specific traditions or rituals inspire this ceremonial atmosphere, and how do you translate that to a modern jazz stage?
I wouldn’t say there’s a specific tradition we are mostly influenced from, but we are very connected to ceremonial energy in our playing. Some parts of our music is all about an ecstatic release of energy and tension. “The Big loss” ends with a part like this, a closer for our album. In a way this whole song is a ceremony of Coping with loss.
The way that feeling of loss is held in the body is not very different from what people refer to as being possessed by a demon, I believe it’s different perspective of the same thing. In a way performing this song is an act of Exorcism.
Beyond that philosophy, you cannot talk about handpan without mentioning spirituality. It is a common instrument in spiritual, meditation and medicine music. The complex texture this instrument creates is purely mesmerizing.
This is the handpan’s natural “comfort zone”, however it comes with a strong stigma of being a “hippie” instrument, or an instrument for non-musicians.
Bar Hadash is breaking this stigma hard, with his appeal of exploring odd meters, complex harmony, and in general being maybe the first of his kind to practice jazz on the handpan.
As the handpan takes center stage in your ensemble, how do you navigate its natural limitations, its quick decay and softer volume, when trying to hold its own against the power of traditional jazz instruments?
There are two aspects to be answered here:
Compositionally – We arrange and perform the sections where the handpan takes the lead with extra care, often supporting it with lower stage dynamics from the rest of the band. Technically – We went through a lot of difficulties with miking the handpan in a live show situation. Honestly, many of our early shows were plagued by painful feedbacks and heavy drum bleed through the handpan microphones. We have found that the best solution for this is using contact mics that stick directly onto the pans to isolate them perfectly. We use a two-mic setup on each of the three handpans—one specifically tailored for the lows and one for the highs of the instrument.
Another interesting anecdote is the way the pans are laid out. Bar plays on three custom-designed handpans in different scales (D minor, E harmonic minor, and F minor). While this setup offers him a wide 3.5 octaves chromatic spectrum, it makes the performance extremely difficult, as he has to navigate three separate physical layouts simultaneously to find the notes he needs.
In your view, what is the most significant boundary currently facing contemporary jazz, and how is Floating Sheep breaking through it?
Honestly, I’m not sure if we are to speak about the boundaries of this genre. As we improvise and take solos in our music, we are under the same umbrella as other contemporary jazz artists; however, we’re not bound to tradition at all. In fact, we never really thought about what genre we were playing when composing this music. We all studied jazz and enjoyed creating together, but we didn’t try to make it anything specific. Our approach to music in general is pure exploration of sound and composition altogether. We play on instruments not common in the contemporary jazz world; some of them are not considered instruments capable of even playing complex music at all. That is what brings us inspiration, and maybe that’s what we can contribute to this discussion—don’t try to be defined by the genre. Simply create from pure inspiration and self-exploration.
How do the electronic elements of your sound participate in the ‘call and response’ of the jazz tradition? Is the technology rigged to be as reactive and unpredictable as the musicians themselves?
To answer this, here is Ofek, our keyboard and synthesizer player: “Funny enough, I believe that synthesizers—especially modular and analog synthesizers—are instruments that hold the jazz philosophy perfectly when joined to live playing.
Most of the electronic gear I use is somewhat unpredictable; I don’t have any sound presets or fixed tempos. This keeps the relationship with the instrument alive and awake. I’m always reacting to the sound and movement of the instrument, and it will always surprise me and the band to some level.
Some of the more experimental parts of our shows start with a synth sequence that we add layers to as a band. Because of the nature of the gear, these parts will sound completely different at each show.”
Artists and people that have influenced you?
Avishai Cohen, Tigran Hamasyan, Sefi Zisling, Omri Mor, and Apifera band. A lot which are from our local scene in Israel, and we are lucky to have them as inspiration.
What is the story behind your name?
The name Floating Sheep is a reminder to keep our minds playful and free. It’s inspired by the perspective of a child who looks at white clouds in the sky and sees them as floating sheep. For us, it represents the ability to find magic and form in the abstract.
Thank you!
Follow floating sheep
Instagram
Follow our Spotify playlist Nomadic Echoes in Spotify/Deezer feat. floating sheep
Secret Eclectic 