Silliness never sounded better
Our first taste of Brisbane six-piece Greshka was The Australian Dream, a single from their new album MORE IS MORE. It was like nothing we'd heard before, and struggling to formulate an accurate description, we took a peek at how the band themselves described their sound:
“Greshka play music which sounds like the contents of Humphrey Bear's suitcase as he departs for a bush doof.”
We couldn't have put it better ourselves.
‘We aim to stay rooted in Eastern European tradition,' Greshka composer and cimbalom-player Andre Bonetti says, ’But paired like a fine wine and petrol-station-snack-crackers, we mix in disco, funk, metal and good-ole-fashion whot-the-folk.'
And what exactly is Andre's instrument, the cimbalom?
'Ever watch that episode of Black Books when Bernard played the piano with spoons?' he says. 'That’s essentially my instrument; it’s a tabletop of strings hit with sticks.
‘It’s a folk instrument from Hungary/Romania, but nowdays used in classical and jazz and stuff.’
The band has been around for almost twenty years, and aims to create music that is deliberately silly (such as a uniquely Greshka cover of Sugababes' Overload).
Their catalogue features both instrumentals and lyric-based songs.
‘Roughly one third is vocal, but it’s at the whim of how busy I am or how inspired I am to write lyrics,’ Andre says.
‘On the other hand, all our instrumental stuff comes from a place of masochism. It’s very difficult music.’
While the band are repeat interstate tourers, their next live show is in their hometown of Brisbane - at a metal festival, of all things. Catch them at Nowhere Festival at Archive in West End on 14th June!