New York
One Voice, Many Languages

“I like this old-school, interactive, immersive element of the band improvising with the audience standing around them, which is very spellbinding for us and the audience because we really do something together,” says Yonatan Gat. The New York-based guitarist co-founded the Tel Aviv-bred garage-rock band Monotonix in 2005 and, after nearly a decade on the road, started a project under his own name in 2014. Honing in on a sound that marries his punk roots with elements of avant-garde music, free jazz and psychedelia, Gat released his LP Director in 2015 and put together an improvisational trio whose lineup includes bassist Sergio Sayeg and drummer Gal Lazer. Instead of a traditional live setup, they play in a tight circle in the center of their audience—their improvisation is chaotic yet synchronized. The band is currently working on a new record that mixes in musical styles from Bali, India, Brazil, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Russia, and the members pepper their instrumental trance jams with lyrics in Hebrew, English and Portuguese. “When you let everyone play as individuals, you actually get a group, and everyone drifts toward a collective consciousness, and that’s a very strong way of creating a band.”