Este Mundo Press Kit

Biography
Coming from the land of earthquakes, social movements, social networking, peace-lovers and global
corporate conglomerates, Rupa & the April Fishes embody the pluralistic and paradoxical sounds of the
San Francisco Bay Area. The band came together in 2006, in the Mission District, a place of intersection
where original dwellers, the Yelamu Indians, lived for 2000 years before the arrival of Spanish missionaries,
followed by old San Francisco Irish families mashed up with relatively newer Latino, African American, Asian
and Pacific Islander communities and the most recent group---the children of the middle and upper middle
class, mostly white hipsters.
The band met through the closely tied arts community and started playing the bars in the barrio,
attempting to forge a sound that would bring a strangely segregated city with a radical past into a joint
space of engagement. Inspired by street music and the ethos of public art around the world, physician and
bandleader Rupa started composing music in multiple languages in order to investigate the idea that what
runs beneath the apparent differences is something deeper---our intrinsic need for human connection and
shared celebratory experience. In a country where space for public noncommercial gathering is incredibly
limited and shrinking, she sought out like-minded mischievous musicians to create opportunities for artistic
dialogue. She found in drummer Aaron Kierbel a longtime creative counterpart who provides the essential
heartbeat to the sonic adventures and together with the rest of the band, they are creating music that is
bridging divides and pointing to the value of live and living music--in its force and delicacy.
The band's first performance was at the autonomous art space in SF, the Red Poppy Art House and since
that incendiary show, Rupa & the April Fishes have been lighting up stages large and small---from the
Montreal Jazz Festival to the Subterranean Art House, from the Power to the Peaceful Festival with
Michael Franti to El Lugar Del Nopal in Tijuana, from Sziget Festival in Budapest to the Mission Arts
and Performance Project in El Garaje de la Folsom. The band has toured extensively in the US, Canada,
along the US-Mexico border and throughout Europe and has collaborated with visual artists, poets, circus
artists, social shakers and other musicians. They have had the honor to share stages with Nonstop Bhangra,
Manu Chao, Gattamolesta, Los De Abajo, The Coup, Rebelution, Rodrigo y Gabriela, LoCura, Brass
Liberation Orchestra, Brass Menazeri and many other inspiring rabble rousers.
Their music is strictly organic, nuclear-free, post-nation, many-headed and decidedly unclean.
Currently touring is Safa Shokrai (upright bass), Misha Khalikulov (cello), Rob Reich (accordion), Mario Silva
(trumpet), Aaron Kierbel (drums), Rupa (songstress, voice, guitar)
"Clearly the work of a terrorist organization, eXtraOrdinary Rendition promotes dangerous antiAmerican notions such as multiculturalism, internationalism, and exuberant dancing." - Utne Reader
JANUARY 2008
For Immediate Release
San Francisco’s musical noma ds Ru pa & the April Fishes
span divides on este mundo
Adventurous new album to be released in North America by Cum banc ha on October 27
San Francisco, CA – August 11, 2009 -- With their second album, este mundo (this world), Rupa & the
April Fishes hold up a carnival mirror to life and present a warped, humorous and occasionally disquieting
reflection. Sequestered beneath Rupa’s infectious and captivating melodies are thought-provoking themes
that address life, love, art, death and the real and artificial divisions that keep us apart. The San Franciscobased musical agitators are specialists in crossing borders and building bridges, and on este mundo, due out on
Cumbancha on Oct. 27, they effortlessly blur the boundaries of genre and geography to create a sound Time
Out has called global agit-pop.
Este mundo was recorded at Prairie Sun Studios by engineer and sound wizard Oz Fritz, who is best known
for his work with Tom Waits (Mule Variations). Guests include rapper Boots Riley of The Coup, along with
some of the Bay Area’s best musical talents including Tin Hat’s trumpeter Ara Anderson and Serbian slap
bassist Djordje Stijepovic. Rupa & the April Fishes blend an alternative pop attitude with international
spices, mixing in elements of Gypsy swing, Colombian cumbia, French chanson and Indian ragas. According to
lead singer Rupa, “este mundo is a collection of sounds and songs highlighting life’s accidental beauty and
surging joy as well as their inexorable partner: human suffering.”
Rupa speaks from experience. A practicing doctor by day and a professional musician by night, she’s
regularly exposed to life’s fragility, resilience and randomness. Her unique perspective informs much of her
deeply personal and poetic compositions. Good Morning America recently sat down with Rupa to discuss
the delicate balance of being a musician on the rise with her day job at a San Francisco hospital where she’s
confronted regularly with death and suffering.
Rupa & the April Fishes had been one of the Bay Area music scene’s best-kept secrets until they were
introduced to the world in 2008 with the global release of their debut album eXtraOrdinary rendition. Praised
by the media and ever-expanding legions of devoted fans, the album reached the top spot on the iTunes
charts in its category on numerous occasions, was featured on multiple National Public Radio programs and
described as “one of the hottest emerging acts” by Time Out Chicago.
“My life has become a strange balance between being home and taking care of patients who are very much a
part of San Francisco, and then traveling around the world making music,” says Rupa. “There's something
nomadic about what we're doing, making and breaking ideas as we generate a particular sound in the
process.”
Over the past year, the group has brought their infectious live show to adoring crowds at NY’s Central Park
SummerStage, the Montreal Jazz Festival, San Francisco’s OutsideLands and Stern Grove festivals, not to
mention dozens of Europe’s most prestigious festivals and venues. With a sound that embodies the creative
energy and open-mindedness of their San Francisco home, the group has shared the stage with Michael
Franti & Spearhead, Devotchka, and Los Lobos among others, and has been compared to Gogol Bordello,
Manu Chao, Beirut and other boundary-breaking genre-straddlers.
Based on her personal history, it’s no wonder Rupa has a wandering spirit. Before she was born, Rupa’s
parents moved to California from India and eventually settled in Southern France. After growing up in the
wildly divergent worlds of California, India and France, Rupa returned to the Bay Area to study medicine,
while maintaining her devotion to music. “I always struggled with trying to figure out what I was supposed
to do, music or medicine.” In the end, Rupa decided to pursue both of her passions, carefully balancing her
career as a doctor with her life as a touring and recording artist.
After playing solo in Bay Area clubs and cafes, Rupa assembled a band that includes a roster of some of the
Bay Area’s most talented young musicians. The name the April Fishes was inspired by the French term les
poissons d’avril, which is related to the English term April Fools. In France on the first of April, people stick
little paper fishes on unsuspecting people’s backs. “The origin of that is disputed, Rupa explains, “but one
of the stories is that when a French king changed to the Roman calendar from the pagan calendar that was
in wide use at the time some people who still wanted to celebrate the New Year in April. So these are the
people who would give the fishes, the April fish, to celebrate the beginning of the New Year. During the
Bush Administration, we were feeling like April fishes-- people who don’t believe the reality that’s handed to
them by some higher order, but instead insist on the reality they perceive in front of them. It’s a political and
social commentary.”
US, Canada and Mexico tour dates in October and November will be announced soon.
For more information, review copies, song lyrics & descriptions,
photographs, and other support materials, etc. please contact:
Allison Elbl @ IDPR Tel: 323.822.4851 or [email protected]
Simeon Chapin @ Cumbancha Tel: +1 (802) 425-2118 * Fax: +1 (866) 340-0054
Email: [email protected] * Web: www.cumbancha.com
Online Press Kit: http://www.cumbancha.com/aprilfishes/press
PHOTOGRAPH: TK
RUPA MARYA GIVES
VOICE TO A “SHARED
GLOBAL IDENTITY.”
Rupa’s comments on este mundo:
1 ( la fro ntera )
the album opens with an audio collage of sounds from the edge of things, the transitional zone. in ecology, it's
the place where two ecosystems meet, where evolution occurs in the shortest time scale. i believe that in
human history, the expressions that embody what is greatest about us come about in places where cultures
and different groups are in close contact with one another. The machine heard in the song is from San
Francisco's musée mechanique, which has a collection of antique hand-cranked, coin-operated moving picture
machines. the wind howls as it does outside my door, blowing in off the pacific ocean, unsettling things. the
cello picks it up, haunting. then the accordion, sounding like a wheel that it is less round than it should be,
offering an imperfect cycle to a melody from eXtraOrdinary rendition, "c'est pas d'l'amour"—“that's not
love.” the sounds of a man's bell and footsteps as he calls out "palettas" (popsicles) from the border. i was
standing right up against the wall that separates the US from mexico when I recorded those sounds. he walks
past us, a sound we recognize, but don't know from where. we are in the transitional zone. we are changing.
2 c 'est mo i
in both medicine and music, i have found that the two greatest teachers, the ones that bring the most
profound lessons, are love and death. each has completely altered the shape of my life and i don't have control
over when they will come and what force they will have. the accidents and randomness in life often bring the
greatest riches, and embracing the futility of trying to maintain control brings a certain whacky and beautiful
freedom. this song highlights how infinitely small our lives are and how magnificently large our hearts are in
the face of uncertainty.
3 por l a fro ntera
the first trip down to the US-Mexico border with the band was in 2007 and i wrote this song on the way
there. we drove along the old highway 101, el camino real. this street links the old spanish missions up and
down california. along the way, we saw jornaleros (day laborers) in the fields, talked with the latino busboys
and cooks in the clubs we played who were fascinated that a group of gringos were going to tijuana with the
purpose of simply seeing the border. we were starting to ask simple questions like: who does this border
benefit and how can a line be worth more than a life? since the US has increasingly militarized the border
along the west coast, immigrants have been making a deadly journey through the desert, many dying of thirst
or starvation. the end of the song features an exchange between drums and bass--a tug of war between life and
death--and a prayer from the mission district's community healer Jorge Molina, asking for safe passage for
those seeking a better life in the US. so many people come to our city to do menial labor, making as much
money in one hour as they do in one day in Mexico. this forced migration driven by economic pressures has
shaped the face of our surroundings.
4 la line a
this song gives voice to the various borders we cannot cross---social, economic, political, romantic, national. it
is about a woman who is wandering the streets, not able to reach another, the frustration of feeling hemmed
in by lines that have been drawn to keep us separated. a few months after i wrote it i met an amazing africanamerican woman in the hospital. she was dying of crack-induced lung illness. she was difficult with most of
the staff at the hospital, acting out her existential angst with the doctors and nurses. the first day i met her, i
sat down and listened to her for about an hour, recounting the story of her life, how she got to where she was.
it was powerful to hear how she framed her life, how she was coming to understand her death. the depth of
connection we felt after this first meeting ended up shaping her stay, and allowed for some profound
interactions between us prior to her death. until then, i had never considered a woman who was called "a
crack whore" by others as a friend but through knowing her and allowing myself to cross my own lines, i
believe she died with a greater sense of peace. and i live with a greater sense of attention to people's struggles
no matter what walk of life they come from. i remember her beauty and courage every time i sing this song.
5 la rose
the words of persian poet hafez inspired this tune:
how
did the rose
ever open its heart
and give to this world
all its
beauty?
it felt the encouragement of light
against its being,
otherwise,
we all remain
too
frightened
this song is a declaration of who i have become through accepting my path in medicine and music, who i have
realized myself to be. it is a recognition that i don't have a choice, that life pushes me from the inside to go
out and do what i do. it's a relinquishing of control of who i think i should be and just being who i am. the
song has the drunken quality that the sufi mystics equate with god and music--intoxication. it is a bursting
out, an opening, at first timid and then full force. it starts intimately, as if you're hearing a secret. and then
the band bursts in as if we had all been kidnapped by a ragtag group of crazy misfits who seize life by the
collar, shake it up and say YES!
6 cul pa de la l una
i keep falling in love. i keep searching for something that i cannot explain. i feel pulled by a hunger that
cannot be answered. the disorientation that comes with living life in the present moment is intoxicating and
destabilizing at times. it's the gift of being a musician, an artist. it's the blessing and curse of passion. it's best
not to complain. and not explain. just blame the moon and roll with it.
7 l 'elepha nt
i wrote the main ideas for this tune the week i got married. it is strange because, it contains the recognition
that the commonly understood form of marriage was not for me. it took me about a year and half to finish
the song, and then another year and a half to finish being married. it's a song about the destructive and
restorative nature of truth. the importance of laying waste to our stories in order to see what is true. it was
inspired by this poem by indian philosopher krishnamurti.
I walked on a path through the jungle
Which an elephant had made,
And about me lay a tangle of wilderness.
The voice of desolation fills the distant plain.
And the city is noisy with the bells of a tall temple.
Beyond the jungle are the great mountains,
Calm and clear.
In the fear of Life
The temptation of sorrow is created.
Cut down the jungle – not one mere tree,
For Truth is attained
By putting aside all that you have sown.
And now I walk with the elephant.
every aspect of this tune was written with the feel of an elephant, swaying, swaggering, knocking stuff down,
tenderly moving. it implies something that is about to break, something at the edge of itself.
8 soledad
this is a fishy rendition of a cumbia from colombia circa 1938. it helped me get over a broken heart, a broken
home. living in SF near the ocean, the best way to deal with life's vicissitudes is to go to the beach and tell it
to the water. i make myself get in, from head to toe a few times a year. it's good for you to hit the freezing
water. wakes up all the cells. i call it "flushing your head." the presence of the ocean keeps everything in
perspective. rapper boots riley joins us laying down rhymes about a relationship gone awry. we recorded this
tune live and then put the band in for what we called the most expensive party we've ever had. oz fritz our
sound wizard was at the board as the band partied around a stereo microphone at the close of one of our
recording sessions. the tequila was lovely.
9 (e l ca m ino del d ia blo )
an interlude, showing the underside of a melody, how it can be stretched, shaped and retold. like a story. now
we are walking along the path that migrants are taking through the sonoran desert, a place that has claimed so
many lives. the sparse and intimate sounds--a crying trombone, fingers on strings, shifting weight, breath-our fragile human selves all blowing in the wind.
10 este mu nd o
our work, our sense of purpose swallows our valuable lifetimes. our passions. our needs. this is a song about
work, calling us away from those we love and across great distances. it is about the yearning we feel to find
each other in spite of these distances.
11 so y pa ya so
this song is my life's journey--from east to west to somewhere in the middle, up to the sky then down to the
bottom of the sea. the arrangement was inspired by the form of "the rime of the ancient mariner" a poem
where a man must tell his story to passersby, an incredible tale. this tune is a story about a woman who is
looking for her place to sing and realizes it is under the sky, not in anyone's home. she gets lured into a house
of magic and some guy inside paints her face because he needs a clown who can sing. and she says she is a
clown but then when she sees a mirror, she can't recognize her own self. so she leaves. it starts with raga
bhairav, with bass drone, tabla and bansuri flute, then cello takes it over with a klezmer-inspired line using the
same notes from the rag but shifting the bass focus. then all of a sudden we're in a d-minor gypsy jazz piece,
with a woman telling her frenzied story. it's full of twists and turns. stops and starts. A tiny clock with cuckoo
bird that look like a bat, a little black mouse running around the floor, a house of magic with a bathtub that
doubles as a stage and a ladder that leads up to a secret loft full of dark secrets tucked away in locked chests.
it's a jack in the box. it's a genie in a lamp. it's the world cut up into pieces and reassembled through sound
and a very strange story. the form of the song was intended to be like an ellipse or the infinity sign--starting
and ending with the tabla and bass drone with flute. the foghorns from our first album make an understated
appearance, bringing us back to SF.
12 neruda
another poet! i know i am not alone in saying my first lover was pablo neruda. his fire and appetite for life are
so palpable in his art, i often wanted to call him on the phone for advice when i felt lost. realizing i could not
reach him, i wrote this song to dance with him. the first verse is his. the second is my answer. a milonga that
branches into other forms, this is a song of celebrating the power of living life close to the juicy core.
13 trou ble
a sultry tune about desire and our tricky negotiations trying to live life honestly. i wrote it the same week as
"culpa de la luna" and feel they are talking about the same thing in two different ways. it's a song of
seduction.
14 la e strella ca ìda
when you sleep alone, you have the benefit of being in "star formation", spreading out all over the bed. this is
a lullaby i wrote to myself after the loss of a major love. overnight my home evaporated. now everything blows
in the wind.
15 espero la l u na
this song is about a change in world order. it takes place along the devil's highway, in the desert of the
borderlands. someone is waiting to cross. she is waiting for the moon to light the way to make it easier. the
tales of people who have walked this path are harrowing, the heat, the thirst, the fear of losing one's life, the
deaths. and the question, is it worth it? this song is about a softer light, a call for a more compassionate world
order.