Brass Messengers with NOMO

The Brass Messengers formed from the annual rubble of of the Heart of the Beast Mayday Parade and Ceremony in Minneapolis. Each year, the parade came and went, puppets packed, park cleaned, summer began and the founding members of the BMers left feeling like their work was unfinished, again. Having compiled years of mobile brass scores for themselves, they took to making it an ongoing affair. Now they dine together (playing music), they take the train (playing music), bike (carrying their instruments, singing), camp (playing music), and bring the party wherever they end up. They started as a street band playing the music of the Caribbean (Ska) and Balkans (Fanfare Ciocarlia), but now play anywhere from the small stages of local bars, where they have been known to throw a country song to the crying drinkers, to Northeast Minneapolis, where a high speed polka or two is essential, to parties for kids, where they get to run in circles with many small children (that is the brass band dance for the under 6 crowd), to gatherings of their activist kin, where a fiery Bella Ciao prepares them for the mean world out there, to the big stage, where they try to play in tune (that'll be The Cedar!). Their music of choice is anything that fits in the twisted brass tubing, from originals to "covers" from around the globe, as long as it makes a joyful noise. For tonight's dance party blowout, they'll be aided and abetted by Chicks on Sticks, North Star Roller Girls, Cabezon puppets, and even a hint of opera!

Ghost Rock is the new album from the Michigan-based collective NOMO. The album, produced by Warn Defever, sheds light on the way forward for a band that has been forging its own vital sound. This is not the Afrobeat of Fela, nor the revivalist funk of a forgotten decade. This record owes as much to Can, Eno, and MIA as it does Kuti, Francis Bebey, and Funkadelic. On Ghost Rock, NOMO arrives in a new place. There's no loss of steam as they incorporate new influences, instead NOMO breaks through with a matured and developed sound that is fully its own.

World music, jazz, electronica, Afrobeat-and yet they are still an American band, more of a rock band than anything else. Their music is full of life, full of emotion. It's funky, danceable, weird, heavy, exuberant, angry, joyous and raucous.

Tickets are on sale now from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.
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NOMO Live session from Svetlana legetic on Vimeo.