Album Notes

Thugs at Bay, or t@b for short, could be called a folk music duet. They play original, acoustic music with guitar, fiddle and two voices. But that's the tip of the iceberg. As a pair, Ariana Nasr and Andy Flinn project the exuberant energy of a Caribbean septet. While Ariana sings jazzy melodies and plays reggae fiddle, Andy beat-boxes a vocalized bass line, plays guitar, and operates parts of a drum kit with his heels. There's nothing like them. In a t@b performance, you'll hear skat and saxophone. There will be root elements from Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America. This couple is completely and utterly unfaithful to any particular style of music. They shamelessly borrow inspiration from anywhere. They cover songs written by friends and play timeless jazz classics..... Check 'em out!

Andy and Ariana have been collaborating at close range since they met in Toronto 10 years ago. As a band they have gone through several incarnations, arriving at the current post-cabaret pop duo. Ariana is the lead vocalist and she also solos on saxophone and violin. Andy is groovatronic, simultaneously playing foot percussion, vocal percussion and guitar in different measures.
They do sound almost main stream, in an outer-galactic kind of way. Sometimes it'll be jazzy skat with lyrics and phrasing that remind of freestyle hip hop. Sometimes it sounds like a Bluegrass hoedown, with funky beat-boxing and a jazzier progression. Sometimes they'll conjure up a trippy melancholy and cure it with exuberant songs of pleasure.

9 years ago t@b created their first music video “A Canadian in Berlin” using the very first version of their own software video editing system. Since then, the video has received hundreds of thousands of downloads and attracted the attention of many very cool musicians and lovers of independent, original art. They have since made several more music videos with the ever-evolving video editor, now called ZS4. They are currently working on a live concert DVD from footage obtained at the “Thugs at Bay” CD release concert in December 2007.

t@b music videos including songs from the upcoming DVD can be viewed online at the website http://www.tabmusic.ca