Miles Jay

Miles Jay is an upright bassist, composer, producer, and instrument maker/inventor. He has performed and recorded extensively throughout Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Greece, and the Persian Gulf.

Miles has appeared onstage with Youssou N’dour, Ziad Rahbani, Naseer Shamma, and Omar Faruk Tekbilek, in venues ranging from Carnegie Hall in New York, the Emirates Palace in Dubai, to TED 2013. He formerly served as the Music Director of the Nile Project. He produced Egyptian superstar Dina el Wedidi’s 2014 album “Turning Back,” featuring Brazilian legend and multiple Grammy winner Gilberto Gil. Miles co-scored the Oscar-qualified documentary, “Through a Lens Darkly, Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People,” with Living Colour’s Vernon Reid. He also composed the score for the documentary, Resistance at Tule Lake. He was the only musician featured on all 10 of the tracks on the new Stereognosis LP, playing not only upright bass, but also buzuk, lyra, krar, and mbira. You can hear Miles playing some of the strings in the Capernaum soundtrack and ALL of the strings in this clip from “Ascent”:

Jayton

Jayton and his brother Pash form the Mad Twinz.  This duet from Kaliningrad went viral with their winning performance at the International Grand Beatbox Battle Tagteam Championship in 2017.

At 21 years of age, the twins gave a freestyle performance in Berlin in 2012, the prodigiousness of which was perhaps best illustrated by the reaction of French beatboxer (and current solo world champion), Alem.   Together Jayton and his twin brother Pash have attracted over 17 milliion YouTube views since that time. Watch for Jayton in the Stereognosis music video for “Farewell” and listen for him on the third Departure track “Journey”, with its Kurdish House vibe. Here he is at only 24 years of age giving a legendary solo performance at the 2015 Grand Beatbox Bottle:

Pash

Pash forms the other half of the Mad Twinz. Since their rise to beatboxing fame, they have developed a signature style of swung, bass-heavy trap, trapstep, and dnb is unmistakable.

The twins notably collaborated with UK beatboxer Reeps One and under the project titled SOUNDHUNTER, they have produced groovy dancefloor arrangements from field recordings that come nothing short of genius.  Watch for Pash in the Stereognosis music video for “Farewell” and listen for him on the sixth Departure track “Stars”, with its funky African dancefloor vibe. Here he is at only 27 years of age in beast of a freestyle performance for Beatbox International:

Bataco

Bataco grew up in Kobe, Japan, and started learning to beatbox when he was 15 years old. Eight years later, he entered the 2016 Grand Beatbox “7 TO SMOKE” Battle as an unknown underdog, and he exited as a new school heavyweight.

With a distinctly calm-yet-calculated battle presence, Bataco delivered several stunning upsets and shined distinctly during his encounters with Dharni, B-Art, and Bloomer. That same year, he released this video showcasing some of his signature drops and breaks. In October 2017, Bataco joined Stereognosis in Stockholm, where he incidentally filmed this winning wildcard performance for the GBB 2018. He subsequently became the 2017 Asian Beatbox Champion after several amazing performances including this insane battle with Show-Go. Bataco makes a prominent appearance on #departurethealbum, contributing many innovative rhythms and textures.

Beat Rhino

Beat Rhino came to the US from South Korea when he was 10 years old. He started beatboxing when he was 14. At 19, he became the first American to represent the US at the Grand Beatbox Battle when he won the 2013 wildcard competition.

Later that same year in August, he won the 2013 US beatbox championship. In September, he appeared with Two.H in this tag team freestyle and then performed with Stereognosis at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, OR. In early 2015, he delivered his burning “Speed Only” performance on Swissbeatbox.com. In April 2016, he delivered this stunning showcase at the Grand Beatbox Battle that opened with his sick trap remix of Jay Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.” In October 2017, he joined Stereognosis for the session in Stockholm and collaborated with Ethiopian masenqo player Endriss Hassan to develop one of the album’s central grooves, later featured in the Stereognosis music video for “Celebration”.

Abbos Kosimov

Abbos Kosimov is a master percussionist from Uzbekistan. His principal instrument is called the doyra, a frame drum with metal rings suspended from the perimeter of the rear surface. He also plays the qayroqs, the darbuka, the dof, and the riqq. Abbos has toured with Zakir Hussain’s Masters of Percussion .

He has recorded with Stevie Wonder. He has also performed with the Kronos Quartet and Bela Fleck. Abbos was prominently featured in this beautiful video of the Homayoun Sakhi trio, and in this standing-ovation solo performance with Stereognosis at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, OR:

Sinan Ayyildiz

Sinan Ayyildiz studied at the Turkish State Music Conservatory in Istanbul and now serves as an associate professor at Ankara Music and Fine Arts University. He plays a long-necked Turkish stringed instrument called the bağlama (“BAH-le-mah”) using an overhand 8-finger tapping style called şelpe (“SHEL-pee”).

He has made several appearances on Turkish national television. He has toured internationally with the groups Et-nika and Mesel, the latter project including kamancheh virtuoso Uğur Önür.  On Departure, he makes several spotlight appearances, most notably in the final track “Transformation". Here is his mind-blowing solo performance from our show at the Alberta Rose:

Naghib Shanbehzadeh

Naghib Shanbehzadeh has studied hand drumming since he was 3 years old.  He is fluent in Persian and Arabic percussive techniques.  He has performed with the NPR-acclaimed Afro-Iranian Shanbehzadeh Ensemble at The Kennedy Center in Washington DC and the Apollo Theater in NYC.

Naghib also performed in Dubai with Trilok Gurtu and Hariprasad Chaurasia. He later performed in a concert at the Asia Society with a project called Sound: The Encounter which was covered by the New York Times.  Listen for Naghib on the Bandari-inspired track “Sanctuary” with Miles Jay on upright and buzuq and Bataco on beatbox. Check his solo freestyle:

Arslan Hazreti

Arslan Hazreti was born in Tabriz, Iran in 1976. He began learning kamancha (Azerbaijani spike fiddle) at the age of 13. When he was only 18 years old, Arslan performed on a self-built kamancha at the Fajr Music Festival in Tehran with Khananda vocalist Aghakhan Abdullayev and Qawwali vocalist Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Arslan studied Mugham (Azerbaijani modal theory) under such masters as Cavit Murtezaoğlu and Adalet Vezirov. He moved to Istanbul in 2004. He has accompanied Susan Deyhim and Aynur Doğan, and has taught at Ross Daly’s Labyrinth Musical Workshop. Here he is playing live on the banks of the Bosporus in Istanbul:

Endris Hassen

Endris Hassen was born in Wolo, Ethiopia in 1977. He began learning masenqo (Ethiopian spike fiddle) at the age of 21. Endris has performed with the prestigious Nile Project ensemble and Ethiocolor.

He has recorded with the “Ethiolicious Afro-Pop band” MistO-MistO, the traditional Ethiopian ensemble Fendika, and the Ethio-Fusion band Damakase featuring banjo player Cory Seznec. In October 2017, he joined Stereognosis in Stockholm and collaborated with beatboxer Beat Rhino to develop one of the album’s central grooves, also featured in TV4’s interview segment entitled “Beatbox builds bridges between people“. Here Endris is shredding masenquo for the Nile Project in Addis Ababa:

Patrick Archie

Patrick Archie is the producer of Stereognosis® and the founder of Estesh3ar Records, LLC. Before Departure, Patrick co-composed, recorded, edited, arranged, and produced the 2010 Stereognosis album, The Hybrid.

The recording process involved 16 different musicians (including himself) from 8 different countries over 4 years. Patrick coordinated the 08/29/13 live performance at the Allberta Rose Theatre, where he played lead guitar on Seven Veils of Sacramonte and rhythm buzuq on Amih. Over the next 4 years, Patrick organized an epic gathering in Stockholm which occurred in October 2017. He scouted 10 master musicians originating from 9 different countries. Music represented the one common language everyone spoke fluently. From 5 days of rehearsal, Patrick selected 10 song ideas to develop and record at RMV Studio. After 5 days of recording in the studio, Patrick arranged for the filming of 2 music videos featuring B-Boy Neguin and graffiti artist Omar Kabbani of Ashekman. For examples of Patrick’s previous compositions and performances, check out Clouds Over Alhambra and Moving Mountains from Stereognosis’ 2005 demo, Oneirism. Here he is getting interviewed in the trailer for the forthcoming documentary, Urban Beats & Ancient Melodies: The Stereognosis Story:

Omar Kabbani

Omar Kabbani performed live graffiti for the 2 Stereognosis music videos. Omar and his brother Mohammed create innovative, iconic urban murals under the name Ashekman.

Their heroic #operationsalam attracted the attention of CNN, who published the article “How graffiti artists turned former warring areas into a giant artwork for peace.” Ashekman has given urban art workshops to school children in Armenia. They have lectured at TEDxBeirut and partnered with Dubai International Film Festival. Red Bull invited them to paint a giant grendizer mural as part of Kuwait’’s Urban Cuture Week in 2017. Incidentally, Ashekman also produces their own hiphop and market their own clothing line. They created the album art for Restless Leg Syndrome’s LP Dabkeh, and subsequently designed the cover art for Stereognosis’ LP, Departure.

B-boy Neguin

B-boy Neguin danced in both of the 2 Stereognosis music videos from Departure released on SwissBeatbox.com. Neguin won the 2010 Red Bull BC One World Final after 17 years of relentless training.

The unofficial video of his mind-blowing showcase in Paris in 2010 has continued to spread virulently across social media channels, while the full high-def version has gathered >1.1M views on YouTube. Neguin danced live with beatboxer KRNFX for Cirque Du Soleil. He also performed live with Madonna on her MDNA Tour. Originally from Brazil, Neguin incorporates of capoiera into his very unique dancing style. Look for him in the Stereognosis music videos for “Celebration” and “Farewell”.