BY TOM NETHERLAND
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD COURIER
Meet the Mumbles.
Straight out of New Orleans by way of Brooklyn, N.Y., the duo of Keith Burnstein and Ethan Shorter crafted a style that’s hip and hot.
Catch the Mumbles on Feb. 5 at Machiavelli’s in Bristol, Tenn.
“I love Bristol,” Burnstein said by phone recently from Knoxville, Tenn. “It’s a unique town.”
As evidenced by the music of the Mumbles, Burnstein embraces distinction. Theirs is a steaming stew of notes. Like a bride to be they incorporate old and new, things borrowed and things blue.
“Our MO is to serve the song,” Burnstein said. “I don’t think there’s a so-called genre of music that we haven’t picked from, but it goes through our filter.”
Mumbles music sifted through that filter has to date resulted in two five-track EPs. First came “Once Eponymous” in 2008 followed a year later by “Muddy Mantras.” Coming soon, is the Mumbles’ first full album, “Annunciation Street.”
The late Allun Cormier of Folk Soul Revival is on three of the album’s songs.
“He recorded them right around Thanksgiving in Knoxville,” Burnstein said. “He’s on the songs ‘The Newspaper Song,’ ‘When the Saints Win the Super Bowl’ and ‘Living with Your Ghost.’ It should be out in March or April. We’re going up to Brooklyn to finish the vocals and horns parts.”
Back to Brooklyn, where the Mumbles began in 2006.
Burnstein and Shorter met as two of 14 members of CEO, Chronic Electronic Orchestra, described as a hip-hop orchestra.
“Ethan and I were usually the first two people at the rehearsals and we found that we worked well together,” Burnstein said. “But in that band, we were accompanists.”
So Burnstein and Shorter left the band and formed the Mumbles. They borrowed a bit from CEO and instilled it into their newfound act.
“There was a lot of funk and soul in that band, so I’d say (we borrowed) a lot of it,” Burnstein said.
The duo left behind the other 12 members. Though on occasion the Mumbles employ a horn section, they work and typically perform as a duo.
How’s that? Listen to such songs as “Suitcases,” hear a full sound. How can they possibly replicate that on stage as a duo?
“I play bass with my left hand and the organ and Wurlitzer with my right hand,” Burnstein said. “Ethan plays drums and percussion. It sounds like four or five guys on stage at once.”
From 2006 until about six months ago, the Mumbles based out of Brooklyn. Then came a fateful trip to New Orleans in December 2009.
“I said, ‘yo, Ethan, let’s move down here,’” Burnstein said. “He said, ‘I’ll move down here when the (New Orleans) Saints win the Super Bowl.’”
The Saints won last year’s Super Bowl, Shorter wrote the Mumbles’ song “When the Saints Win the Super Bowl,” and…
“We moved to New Orleans in June 2010,” Burnstein said.
New Orleans and the Mumbles fit. At the musical root of sound in the Mumbles rumble Burnstein’s keyboards.
“They are all vintage keyboard sounds,” he said. “We’re always going for things that sound as analog as we can.”
As a result, the Mumbles’ sound maintains a deep and rich sound. Listen close for bits of Ray Charles blurred with Tom Waits and Stax soul with sprinklings of jazz, hip-hop and so on and on.
“We call it avant soul,” Burnstein said.
Tom Netherland is a freelance writer. He may be reached at features@bristolnews.com.
IF YOU GO
>> Who: The Mumbles and Folk Soul Revival
>> When: Feb. 5, 9 p.m.
>> Where: Machiavelli’s, 8 5th St., Bristol, Tenn.
>> Info: (423) 573-9955
>> Web/ audio: www.myspace.com/brooklynmumbles
>> Video: www.youtube.com (search Mumbles video medley)
>> And: www.facebook.com/themumbles
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