East coast export Shreem is finding ways of bringing people and music together. His latest celtic remix combines Ottawa’s A Tribe Called Red with Victoria’s The Fretless in an effort to show that, ultimately, we all belong to the human race and there might be no stronger unifying factor to all of us than our desire to mindlessly jump up and down to a good beat. His video for “One World, One Dance” features a collection of found footage that acts as sound historical documentation that the hokey-pokey is truly a universal phenomenon.
As Shreem bills it: this is not your average ceilidh. Incorporating looping, vocal sampling and a whole lot of fiddling, Shreem is putting a fresh spin on the celtic staple of east coast music—not just by breathing fresh life into it, but also by putting a narrative spin on things.
Jay Andrews, the creative force behind Shreem explains that “One World, One Dance” is a mashup based on two of his favourite (not to mention JUNO award-winning) Canadian artists. Shreem mixes A Tribe Called Red’s “Look At This (Remix)” with The Fretless’s fiddle-powered “Growling Old Man & Growling Old Woman Growling Cousin Teepee Creeping,” for what he describes as a “call and response” of the two songs that is representative of the harmony we can coexist in.
“It’s the truth of reality; the rest is just smoke and mirrors,” says Andrews. “At the end of the day, beyond the labels that may seem to ‘divide us’ as humans, we are all one. Not dual, not separate, but one.”
“A Tribe Called Red is an unbelievably wise group of artists who are arranging and advancing their traditional indigenous music. What they do is rooted in a very beautiful and strong lineage of spiritual belief and practice. In this country, and around the world, native indigenous people and their ancestors have been brutally and violently oppressed for many, many years and that continues today. Their music tells their story, it tells their history and how they feel. It expresses exactly what I think music is supposed to express, and I greatly admire them for that. What they do is much more significant than the sound waves they make. They represent and speak for the unheard, the unseen and the oppressed.”
Andrews says that we can expect the release of a full Shreem x Celtic Remixing album sometime in the next year.
Tour Dates:
02.13.19 – Montreal, QC @ TBA
03.16.19 – Grand Rapids, MI @ TBA