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Never judge a band by a single performance. The first time I saw the Marseilles-based Watcha Clan was in July 2009 at a small club in San Francisco and the performance fell flat. The songs lacked the moments of unpredictability that worked so well on Diaspora Hi-Fi, the arrangements felt hackneyed and stale. I left feeling Watcha Clan was just another electronic band that created interesting studio work but was out of its element live (check out my interview with Lado Clem of Watcha Clan on Afropop.org in 2009). I’m here to report that this is one of those times when I’m happy to be wrong. I saw Watcha Clan again on Sunday July 18, 2010 in a very different setting and they killed.
Watcha Clan, headlining the finale of the 25th edition of the Jewish Music Festival in San Francisco, turned in an exciting musical performance where, surprisingly, everything clicked. The staid, buttoned-down performance space of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is not an ideal setting for a “world & bass” band. YBCA books some interesting and innovative musical acts (just take a look at a fascinating installation by Oakland’s musical iconoclasts Charming Hostess) but it feels like what it is: a room tacked onto a museum. The lines of folding chairs set up in the room also didn’t bode well for a band that relies upon a physical reaction from its audience. Lado Clem (Clement Queysanne) told me after the show that they get nervous when people don’t get up and dance. Large portions of the room were left open for dancing but this was truly an “all ages” show and it didn’t look hopeful. At least, the Jewish Music Festival had promoted Watcha Clan as “controlled chaos” (a quote from Bob Boilen of NPR’s All Songs Considered) so the audience had some idea of what to expect.
The emphasis was on control when keyboardist Lado Clem and bassist Matt took the stage and laid down a techno groove that slowly built, approaching aural chaos and then stepping back into a controlled groove. Joined by guitarist /vocalist Nassim and front woman/vocalist Sistah-K (Karine), Watcha Clan hit its stride, playing a ninety-minute set that blended North African, Balkan and Jewish (Ashkenazi, Sephardic and Mizrahi) music with club beats and electronic manipulations. There was more Jewish material than in a typical Watcha Clan show but North African Muslim songs were also prominently featured. The brotherhood of Jewish and Muslim cultures is one of the messages of the band. It’s explicit in the music and implicit when the two vocalists, Muslim Nassim and Jewish Karine sing together. Asserting the links between Muslim and Jewish culture was part of the appeal of the band to festival director Ellie Shapiro: “the most natural thing in the world, what Jewish values are all about.” She said it also expressed the mission of the Jewish Music Festival to explore “what it means to be Jewish in a multicultural world.”
Clement told me beforehand that the audience would recognize new versions of the well-known Jewish songs they were going to play. The exception was a lovely Yiddish song that they performed with minimal Watcha manipulations. For some members of the audience, it was the moment when they began to nod and clap along. When Shapiro had seen them at the Lotus World Music & Arts Festival in Indiana in 2009, her moment had been when they performed the Hebrew song “E li E Li.” Shapiro made an immediate gut decision to book them and Watcha Clan enthusiastically signed on – no Jewish organization in France had ever asked them to perform and they hope this will open the door. By the end of the set, a healthy portion of the audience was up and dancing. The band killed.
A few days before the show, Clement and I talked about the change in the approach Watcha Clan was taking to creating musical fusion on their new album (for release in early 2011). The album will include more North African, Balkan and Jewish songs, including a Yemeni song played in a Balkan way. Clement said it’s in the same format – “traditional plus electric but deeper.” This time, they are spending less time working on the arrangements and putting more attention to finding the emotion. For each song, they start by recording two or three simple vocal tracks by Karine or Nassim. Then when they have a good vocal take, they build a mix around it. The approach seems to be paying early dividends. On Sunday night, the arrangements of the songs from Diaspora Hi-Fi were more dynamic and felt both more immediate and filled out. They bore little resemblance to the watered-down versions I’d bemoaned last time I’d seen them. Last time, I saw Watcha Clan, I left eagerly awaiting their new album but unsure if I’d see them again live. This time, I’m eagerly awaiting the new album and looking forward to seeing them again when they return for a North American tour next year. And, remember, never judge a band by a single performance.
