:: Recent Articles:
Eastern Bloc Party, The Toids
Redlands Concert Review
Frets Magazine, Ryan Francesconi
The Odd Get Even, East Bay Express
The Balkan Tinge, by Noah Enelow

:: Reviews:

"Fusing threads of funk, rock, jazz, Balkan, Middle Eastern and Indian traditional music, whether through sax, guitars or traditional instruments, Toids casts a smoky tapestry of mystery and haunting possibility. While their songs vary from playful and mischievous to dangerous and menacing, there is a strong persona pushing through each track, questioning and professing and relentlessly needling its voice through quilted textures of breadth and transparency. Taking the listener into the frail sanctuary of a human heart in one track to an international worldly celebration the next, Unblocked Ears is an aptly named disc, turning the key to the mind through clever, disarming and impossibly consistent talent."

- Tamara Turner, CD Baby

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The Toids, "Unblocked Ears", Odd Shaped Case 2006

"The wide spectrum of world music gains brightly colored bands exponentially. Here to prove that fact is The Toids, a highly focused, mystic obsessed collection of players out to illustrate the journey from Ireland to Africa via Transylvania.

The album can best be described as a journey. That is the threading to the project and you canŐt meld these type influences without traveling great distances. Minor key swells decorated with near-noise solos and firecracker hand drumming. Sometimes stumbling other times swift and epic, the ten tracks hold a wealth of knowledge and a wealth of musical taboo. Taboo may not be musical but itŐs the word that I keep coming back to, the music evokes emotions that somehow seem sinister and beautiful.

The Toids have taken Jazz and plugged it into the World genre. The outcome is progressive and completely mystical. Having not much to do with the seven chords that dominate western music, The Toids paint with rhythms as well as rising and falling tempos. Unblocked Ears is a sonic adventure hels only to the standards of expert musicianship and innovation."

- Thomas Martin

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"A Balkan jazz trio, a belly-dance troupe, some world-class hip-hop and a pair of Americana roughnecks. That's the cast of characters set to ignite a busy and diverse weekend at The Dame.

Let's start with The Toids, a California ensemble that advertises "new Balkan jazz" as its specialty. But perhaps a more fitting slogan would be the title of its newest album: Unblocked Ears. Employing strings -- specifically tambura, bouzouki and guitar, plus accordion and percussion, Ryan Francesconi, Dan Cantrell and Tobias Roberson color inspirations from the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Shades of jazz, klezmer, Bulgarian folk, Indian classical and even electronica music surface at times. Mostly, though, The Toids' worldly view of world music reveals mystical and lyrical fun with little regard to borders."

- The Lexington Herald (Kentucky)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .