Eclectic Overdrive hosts world music at Flying Squirrel Community Space 

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Avant-garde music promoter Adam Arritola, of the one-man production company Eclectic Overdrive, first made a name for himself with the 2018 music festival “The Perfect Trip: Miami Psych Fest II.” The event was met with approval by prominent online music media figures such as Nardwuar and Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop, but the third Miami Psych Fest, planned for 2020, was canceled due to the pandemic.

Since then, Arritola moved to Rochester and dove into the local music scene, bringing his Eclectic Overdrive concerts with him. Arritola presents his second Rochester show on Jan. 8 at Flying Squirrel Community Space featuring co-headliners Gabriel Akhmad Marin and the duo of Ravi Padmanabha and Mikee Strongmen — all musicians who blend experimental and world-music elements.



The east-meets-west collaboration between Western New York musicians Ravi Padmanabha and Mikee Strongmen first bloomed in 2018, with the release of the album “Americana Raga.” As that title suggests, the Padmanabha/Strongmen duo combines Indian classical and American folk traditions to create evocative, almost otherworldly music. With Padmanabha playing the percussive tabla and the bowed string instrument sārāngi, and Strongmen on banjo and slide dobro guitar, the duo’s distinct instrumentals are highly meditative with expressive tone colors.


Guitarist Gabriel Akhmad Marin is best known as a member of the New York City-based jazz fusion trio Consider the Source, but Saturday’s show marks his live debut as a solo performer. His recently released album “Ruminate: Improvisations for Fretless Guitar and Dutar” is an adventurous yet introspective collection of impromptu soundscapes for guitar and Iranian and Kazakh lutes.

Marin’s influences on “Ruminate” stretch from Central Europe to Central Asia. “I wanted to figure out how to play Eastern European music that was in my blood, with the expressions of Indian, Turkish, Persian music coming from there,” he explained on his Bandcamp page.

Local audiovisual-noise artist Dr. Hamburger, aka Cameron Farash of the performance space Psychic Garden, will perform in between sets, providing a blend of ambient sound and abstract video projections.

January is a busy month for Arritola and Eclectic Overdrive, with two additional shows geared toward the avant-garde:  Miami noise icon Rat Bastard with local acts SMAXCULT and Luna Canfield on Jan. 25, and the improvisational duo Plutonian Burrito with City Harvest Black — the sound project Rochester-born artist Joel Dow — on Jan. 27.

Eclectic Overdrive presents Gabriel Akhmad Marin, Padmanabha/Strongmen Duo, and Dr. Hamburger on Saturday, Jan. 8, from 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m. at Flying Squirrel Community Space, 285 Clarissa Street, Rochester. Sliding-scale donations accepted for the artists. Masks required. facebook.com/EclecticOD; gabrielmarin.bandcamp.com; ravipadmanabha.bandcamp.com.

Daniel J. Kushner is CITY’s arts editor. He can be reached at [email protected].