Oh Lucille! Balkan burst of color on a gray April afternoon, walking into the Kicha Studios in Florentine, where Lucille is in the kitchen, cookin’ up their first album – and it is hot! The recording studio is a place of extremes: you’re dancing one moment and tearing out your rastas the next. There’s dazzling energy, fierce concentration, and a whole lot of listening, tension and chillin’.
When photographer Victor (MuperPHOTO) and I came in, Ilan Adiri (sax) and Barak Hener (trumpet) were laying on tracks over the foundations of Muezzin, a Balkan-Middle Eastern piece that Lucille had just recorded with the help of their friends, Balkan Ba’Machsan.
Back in the monitoring room were a whole mess of people and movement – that’s Lucille – amazing musicians, movin’, groovin’, taking the potential of their different instruments, expanding, bending the music, Balkan, Blues, and Hip Hop coming together where sound meets rhythm, singing into the soul, making music that makes you move!
Lucille recorded the EP Smokin’ Soul as the band was just emerging, with the fantastic Ester Rada on vocals; Lucille has grown and come into its own since then, creating a solid core with a mind-blowing horns section and the powerhouse vocals of petite Naama Chetrit. In their own words, Lucille are: Heart n’ Soul – Naama Chetrit; Rhythm n’ Rhymes – Rebel Sun; Guitar – Isgav Dotan; Bass – Roey Paradny; Drums – Yossi Adi; Trumpet – Barak Hener; Sax – Ilan Adiri; Sampler – Ilan Levi; Keys – Naaman Shadmi; with Isgav Dotan in charge of production.
You never know where Lucille is going to take you, but having heard them live – both in intimate settings and with a crowd of thousands – you know you want to be with them on this ride. Victor and I were in the studio for three songs – Muezzin, Moses and Bluesin’. Beginning in the Balkans, and then towards late afternoon a drum beat leads you on down to New Orleans, dancing down the Mississippi on that river of sound flowing through Florentine.
Victor’s photos capture the feeling in the studio, the experience of the musicians. Big thanks to Victor, for the gift of reliving those moments here. Lucille & Balkan – you terrific guys – loved hanging out, listening and watching you do your thing. You listen so intently to one another, listening as you wait to go on, and when you do go on – you give it all, again and again. Then you’re done recording your tracks, and you’re getting ready to move on, packing up, and just as you’re zipping up the case of your instrument, someone calls out from the other room: “Can you give a bit more?” And you do.
