Ancient Agents set to roll
ANCIENT Agents, an instrumental interplay between world-class musicians, will be touring South Africa for two weeks and this new band of music greats, are looking forward to road tripping the country.
It’s the brainchild of Ronan Skillen, a musician inspired by the aesthetic of record label ECM, and music from Mali to Memphis and Mumbai.
He said the idea of the band was based on a relationship formed years ago.
“(Musician) Reza Khota and I are friends and I got this idea to create this band that included him and me, as well as Fredrik Gille and Schalk Joubert who are great musicians”, he said.
With musical influences from Africa, India and Scandinavia, the quartet combines traditional rhythms and contemporary harmonies to produce a richly textured acoustic world beat that crosses genres, borders and time signatures.
“We decided to name ourselves Ancient Agents, not because we’re old but because the instruments we play are considered primitive by some and, of course, ancient by others. The music you associate with the instruments we play is old and traditional music. And yes, we will be playing traditional music but it will have a modern take”, Skillen said.
This local-international collaboration brings together four multi-instrumentalists – an innovative lead guitarist, a melody-driven bassist and two intuitive, dexterous percussionists whose instruments range from Arabic to Indian and North African. Each band member brings with him a distinct sound, an impressive performance history and international experience.
“We are looking forward to our tour because we have never played together before. It was a little difficult getting promoters to come on board because we are a new band. We have been rehearsing and it’s been great. People are going to enjoy our shows”, he said.
Skillen said audiences could expect a mix of music and sounds that wouldn’t be too technical.
“It’s instrumental music and we imagine there will be a number of grey-haired people in the audience but it is going to be groovy. We’re catering to a diverse group of people and there will be something for everyone”.