After Kim's return from Indonesia where he performed at Sawahlunto International Music Festival, Kim Sanders & Friends and their unique style of Balkan Gypsy brass-band madness are back at Camelot due to popular demand! There will also be Persian dance grooves, aetherial Sufi meditations, Sth African township jive and strange uncategorizable originals. Special guest with the band will be Iranian Kurdish percussionist Mustafa Karami, a master of the dhaf (frame drum). Mustafa also sings and plays oud.

“We’ve had some Persian tunes in the repertoire for a while – including Persian reggae” says Kim “but this gig will give us a chance to learn a few new grooves. Mustafa and I played together in Davood Tabrizi’s Far Seas last year. Llew Kiek has also played Persian music in Mara! and with Kim in Nakisa, Tansey’s Fancy and various ad hoc ensembles over the years, Peter Kennard is a great frame-drum player, so there should be a lot of things happening”.

There will also be music with a Balkan Gypsy brass band feel. Kim has played with Gypsy musicians in Macedonia and Turkey, so he is quite at home with improvisation in 11/8 and other bent rhythms.  “The trick is” says Kim, “not to count.  It’s all feel – the grannies in the villages in Macedonia have never heard of 9/8, but they can do the dance OK! And of course, you always get Gypsy musicians for your wedding – they’re the best! They are the only people who understand that going half-way round the world to play music doesn’t mean you have a big house and a Ferrari by  the pool at home. I remember staying with Romani friends in Berovo, Macedonia, and the party started half an hour after we arrived. Even the 10 year-old kids could play…”

The band will be driven along by Sam’s Stylish Sousaphone.

Kim Sanders: ney, kaval, gaida, saxofon
Llew Kiek: bouzouki, baglama
Sam Golding: sousaphone
Peter Kennard: percussion
Mustafa Karami: oud, vocals and percussion

 “The enthusiasm and passion of this globetrotter's music makes the listener get carried away from the first notes” – Rootstown (Belgium)
“Exotic and uplifting world music with a contemporary feel” (Paul Petran, Producer, Music Deli, ABC Radio National)
“Sanders’ skills as an instrumentalist are impressive, far superior to most Western players who make money from the same instruments…(As a composer, his work is)  new and genuinely exciting…Great fun, full of ideas and surprises and an artist deserving of greater exposure”  - Chris Williams, fROOTS Magazine (UK)