Fishtank Ensemble

Fishtank Ensemble is a lively and unusual ensemble consisting of violin, saw, accordion, shamisen, flamenco guitar, bass, percussion and voice. Romanian folk music forms the bulk of the material, with a healthy helping of Flamenco, Swedish folk music, Klezmer, other folk sources and original songs.

Fishtank formed around the arrival in northern CA of the gifted young fiddler Fabrice Martinez. Originally from France, he has spent the last seven years traveling around Europe in a mule-drawn gypsy caravan learning and playing folk music with the ensemble "Croque Mule." Much of that time was spent living in Romania, often in Romani (Gypsy) villages. But almost as soon as Fabrice came, he went back to his mule-drawn caravan in Europe.

On their very first performance at the Almar grill in Santa Cruz the band got a deal to record their first record. just three weeks later, their Debut "Super Raoul" was recorded in Oakland and Santa Cruz.