Bneleti [USA/GE]

Bneleti (ბნელეთი) is a solo project by Ben Wheeler, an experimental musician, composer, and ethnomusicologist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Performing with an electric guitar, saz, and modular synthesizer, Wheeler integrates his impressions of the music of Caucasus, particularly Azerbaijani traditional music and Georgian polyphony, with dark ambient, drone, and experimental composition, and the aesthetic of Seattle hardcore and black metal, creating a musical world that is beyond genre classifications.

Ben Wheeler is the co-founder of Mountains of Tongues, a project dedicated to preserving and promoting lesser known music from the Caucasus region. He has recorded songs in languages that have rarely been caught on tape, instruments that only exist in extremely small numbers, and performances from a variety of underrepresented ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority communities throughout the region. He has produced several albums that showcase the musical diversity of the Caucasus, as well as the film “Gitara” (2018) about the history of the electric guitar in Azerbaijan.

He is the Senior Editor of EastEast, a journal that covers culture and society in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus and one of the curators of the platform EastEast radio. Ben is also the founder of the Caucasus All Frequency festival, which has brought together experimental and traditional musicians from around the world for collaborations and knowledge exchange. He is the host of the Caucasus All Frequency Podcast, which contextualizes the music of the region through new contexts and points of focus. He teaches introduction to synthesis and advanced modular synthesis courses as an instructor at Creative Education Studio in Tbilisi.

Wheeler composed music for multiple independent films and was the music supervisor for the acclaimed film “And Then We Danced” (2019), a passionate coming-of-age tale set in the world of Georgian traditional dance. His work features the musical structures of folk traditions meshed with electronic music and lo-fi aesthetics. Influenced by a seemingly disparate array of musical characteristics from the Caucasus, tape music, Soviet-era electronics and modular synthesis, he has released multiple solo albums under his own name, performed and written for a diverse selection of bands, and worked as a music director and composer. His first full-length release under the moniker "Bneleti" is set to be released in January 2026 on Inverted Spectrum Records, and will be followed by a three-week tour of Eastern Europe.

On the tour, Ben will be playing a set based on the forthcoming album.


This event was organized with the help of Inverted Spectrum Records
https://invertedspectrumrecords.bandcamp.com/

To support this project, admission will be based on a minimum 50 RON donation.

You may also like the following events from Zadar Bar:

• This Thursday, 26th February, 08:00 pm, | | consider transition | | - aram shelton + neon cola in Bucharest

Also check out other Entertainment events in Bucharest, Music events in Bucharest, Performances in Bucharest.