Timur and the Dime Museum put on a punk-operatic spectacle.
The avant-garde cabaret act Timur and the Dime Museum entertained the crowd with thirty minutes of pure post-punk operatic bliss!
Perverse cabaret/chamber group Timur and The Dime Museum...and although billed as a puppet opera, Zoophilic Follies was far more opera than puppet, with extravagant, exotic music composed by Daniel Corral (who served as conductor and accordionist of the band) and otherworldly singing from poly-tessitura vocalist Timur Bekbosunov.
There are some lovely songs here and it is hard to ignore the musical energy of the piece. Zoophilic Follies cries out for further development and performances.
LA WEEKLY: BEST OF LA PEOPLE ISSUE 2011 PROFILE “You could never call Bekbosunov an artist of compromised vision. Though classically trained, he practices "reform opera," rejecting the elitism and orthodoxy of high art. Bekbosunov doesn't hold back in the Dime Museum's cover of NIN' "Closer." He shrieks, jerks his hips, sighs, screams and whispers. You shouldn't be surprised to see the tall, handsome vocalist in tails or a long black cape, sparkles or leather.”
Criss-crossing not only musical paths but also national boundaries, Bekbosunov has been hard at work engaged in various musical ventures. The high demand for his work serves as a testament to the quality of his musicianship and of the intrepid mind that refuses to be boxed into sterilized genres.
Timur adds a second twist by making his act a real fusion of rock and classical, adding a rock and roll sensibility to his classical performances. You won’t just see him singing David Bowie’s “Life on Mars”; you’ll also see him writhing on the stage and giving the kind of energetic performance that makes his band such a standout.
CRESCENTA VALLEY WEEKLY "Bekbosunov belongs to a new generation of musicians that refuses to see music as genres compartmentalized into different bacteria-free chambers. Through Bekbosunov’s voice and the cracker-jack work of the Dime Museum band (with sterling arrangements by band member Daniel Corral) avant-garde music, cabaret, pop, and Russian folk music sits side-by-side in a giddy amalgam of cultures and voices."
HITS MAGAZINE "With his dark, goth manner, lopsided haircut and sickly pallor, this incredible operatic, Bryan Ferry-ish tenor from Kazakhstan, the home of Borat, could well be cast in an upcoming Twilight sequel or episode of True Blood."
"Timur and his band paid tribute to the evening’s man of honor [Kristian Hoffman], covering several of his songs, including “That’s Something New” and a show-stopping, standing ovation-inducing, pitch-defying take on the rapturous “Total Eclipse”.
"He could well be a fusion of Tiny Tim and Enrique Caruso for the new depression."
FLAVORPILL "Timur and the Dime Museum's audacious calliope of crooning can be as dizzying as falling in love or massive enough beat it out of you. Timur's liberated, vaudeville-style music is among the most original being made in LA today, despite his referencing of the canon from the classics to the contemporary (their cover of NIN's "Closer" is out of this world). And though the visually impactful theatricality of Tiimur's project lacks none of the post-kitsch underworld glamour and Gothic style you'd expect from the indie-operatic genre, the music makes for smart, complex listening. Get a sense of it all in the new "music film" project Autumn, a collaboration with Sandra Powers."
METAL JAZZ "For our neo-Weimar times, this Timur Bekbosunov is some kind of singer. Trim kid from Kazakhstan moonlighting from his opera gig, but disdaining the classical geek factor: instead substitute eye makeup, asymmetrical coif, maximum camp. And oh yeah, at least four octaves of precise power, from rib-shaking baritone to eyeball-cracking falsetto."
"Timur executed Ian Gillan screams and Justin Hawkins jet howls without ever stooping to anything so crude as rock. Love the accent, love the charm. Obvious star quality."
CRESCENTA VALLEY WEEKLY "Sometimes one is confronted by music that blurs the divide between the high-brow and low. My encounter with Timur and the Dime Museum at the Los Angeles Central Library’s ALOUD series was one of the most surprising and happiest encounters I’ve had this year. Stepping sure-footedly between the worlds of art song, cabaret, and pop music, Timur Bekbosunov, star of the Dime Museum, may be one of the most exciting artists of today."
LA BUZZ "Timur and the Dime Museum are an operatic exploration of modern jazz and current tunes through a bohemian vaudeville looking glass."
LA WEEKLY “Timur is a fascinating Kazakh-American hybrid, a flamboyant performer with the emotive tendencies of Rufus Wainwright and a beautifully haunting voice."
"He is a brilliant architect of tension. Dressed in stone-washed black and white striped pants, with an iridescent belt draped around his waist and an outrageous, striped coat with comically elongated cuffs and lapel, singing Radiohead covers and Kristian Hoffman originals, the CalArts graduate fits the part. Unabshedly quirky, Bekbosunov is one of those kids with a freakishly high creative IQ, a policy of giving his audience the benefit of the doubt, and a pass on Halloween costume shopping, as his daily wardrobe will do.”.
