Ethnosonic

Every Ethnosonic concert starts somewhere different. You might open with a fierce Caucasian mountain dance, pulse already racing before you've decided to move. Then a single duduk note stops the room — and you're suddenly inside something 2,000 years old. Then, without warning: a melody you half-recognize, a Scottish lament stripped of nostalgia and rebuilt into something wild. No one in the band knows exactly where the night will land. Neither will you.

That's Ethnosonic — a Toronto-based seven-piece ensemble whose music is original at its core. Sar Kamler and Aslan Gotov compose the pieces: jazz built on irregular rhythms, multi-lingual vocals, and the 2,000-year-old Armenian duduk. The folk traditions of the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans aren't a genre exercise. They're the DNA — heard in the cry of Sasha Boychouk's reeds, in wild grooves of Viktor Khomenko's bass, in Val Chitac's warm accordion swells, in Inal Gotov's guitar and Circassian folk vocals, and in the driving pulse of Adam Mansfield's drums.

"Fierce. Meditative. Ancient. Funky. "

In their first year, Ethnosonic sold out two headline concerts, broke all-time collected tip records at Toronto's beloved Drom Taberna — earning an invitation to headline its prime-time Friday and Saturday slots — and performed at Hugh's Room Live. They released debut album ONE and received an Ontario Arts Council grant, all within 12 months of formation. They are the only duduk-led jazz fusion ensemble in the world.