Painted Caves
A seemingly random encounter set Milwaukee’s Painted Caves on the way to a 2014 festival performance in India and worldwide distribution for their CD in 2015. The group’s vocalist, guitarist, songwriter and driving force, Ali Lubbad, recalls the gig where he met the Madison partner of a New Delhi music label, Amarrass Records. “Ankur Malhotra missed our set,” Lubbad says, “but I handed him our CD. He sought me out a year later. He asked if we could play at their festival—in India.”
That was late summer and the festival took place Nov. 21-22. “Are you serious?” Lubbad asked Malhotra. The music entrepreneur was serious enough to included Painted Caves among the traditional ethnic musicians on day one of the New Delhi event and pegged them for the headline spot among more contemporary performers on day two.
Amarrass Records is a respected label in world music circles for albums of field recordings from Rajasthan, Sufi devotional songs and West African kora music. By signing Painted Caves, Amarrass is reaching beyond its core audience without compromising its mission. Describing Painted Caves as an “Arabic garage band,” Lubbad adds that Amarrass has greater integrity than labels that are marketing inorganic fusions as world music. “No one is trying to scientifically combine Gypsy horns with bhangra drums as part of a scheme to sell records,” Lubbad says. At the Amarrass festival, he met “musicians with an innate need to express something.” The lineup straddled cultures and continents, but was “intimate music,” Lubbad continues. “Not that you couldn’t dance to it, but the music had a contemplative edge—a beautiful mood of introspection. The audience listened so well.”
Lubbad and multi-instrumentalist Mike Kashou are the core of Painted Caves, but the lineup expands and contracts according to the occasion. The band often includes Holly Wake (vocals, flute), Matt Wilson (bass), Marc Wilson (tabla and other percussion), Andy Lopas (drums), Ali Amr (qanun) and Devin Drobka (drums).
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When Painted Caves released its self-titled CD in 2012, it received extensive airplay on WMSE, Radio Milwaukee and other stations around the country. Dreamy yet with a rock sensibility, the songs are elegantly composed psychedelia rooted in Lubbad and Kashou’s Near Eastern heritage. The reverberant jangle of a Silvertone electric guitar harmonizes with the eerie twang of the oud as drumsticks meld with hand-slapped percussion. Minor keys set the tone for music that suggests an altered reality in a beautiful Kasbah of the mind. The cross-connections explored by Painted Caves have a long history, starting with Dick Dale’s surf instrumental hit “Misirlou,” a Middle Eastern folk melody amped up for a rock lineup. The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” and The Who’s “Armenia City in the Sky” are only two examples from the late ’60s of rock recordings that drew on modes and instruments from faraway Eastern lands.
Amarrass is reissuing the CD this spring for distribution in Europe, Australia and Japan. “I’ve been working on it,” Lubbad says of the follow-up, “for the past three years. Between three children and a fulltime job, that leaves late nights and early mornings for finishing it.” Meanwhile he hopes to release a single in time for Record Store Day in April. A Painted Caves track may also surface on a vinyl LP, an album recorded live at the Amarrass festival.
Painted Caves performs at the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Windover Hall, 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 7.
