RECORD LABELS:
RECTIFY RECORDS
DMG GERMANY
MAIN PROJECTS:
DANIEL WELTLINGER QUARTET
Daniel Weltlinger – violin
Uri Gincel – piano
Paul Kleber – double bass
Mathias Ruppnig – drums/percussion
“Weltlinger and his quartet skip so lightly between idioms that, whether landing on a waltz rooted in the European tradition or a swing jazz tune, they achieve a miraculous weightlessness.”
John Shand, Sydney Morning Herald
The Daniel Weltlinger Quartet is led by the internationally renowned Australian born violinist, composer, and producer Daniel Weltlinger (Lulo Reinhardt Latin Swing Project / Karsten Troyke / Moka Efti Orchestra), and is based in Berlin. The overarching concept behind this unique ensemble focuses primarily on original compositions and improvisations based on real-life stories, using elements of Eastern European folk music, jazz, and free improvisation to vividly describe these stories.
The quartet’s debut album, “Szolnok,” released on May 3, 2019, by DMG Germany and Rectify Records, which was nominated for the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, tells the story of Weltlinger’s violin from Szolnok, which he inherited from his Hungarian-born grandfather, who carried this instrument with him on his journey from Hungary to France between 1920 and 1922. The violin survived being carried to the far reaches of the globe, and was brought back to Europe in late 2017 after some 75 years absence from the continent. The Szolnok album follows the historical line of this instrument and its whereabouts until this present day, and it represents a story about time, continuity, and most importantly about moving forward.
ALBUM: SZOLNOK AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY, ITUNES, AMAZON AND BANDCAMP.
BERLIN DJANGO PROJECT
Daniel Weltlinger – violin
Mitya Gerasimov – clarinet
Giovanni Steinbach – guitar
Santino Bamberger – guitar
Matthieu Baud – double bass
“Weltlinger’s compositions capture the very whimsical essence of the style that Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli developed that so charmed the world at the time and continues to charm to this day.”
Peter Winkler – Music Trust Online
Berlin Django Project is led by the internationally renowned Australian born violinist, composer, and producer Daniel Weltlinger (Lulo Reinhardt Latin Swing Project / Karsten Troyke / Moka Efti Orchestra) and combines original compositions from the group members along with traditional and modern Gypsy-swing, waltzes and Chanson. The band represents a microcosm of the cultural melting pot that is Berlin and captures a unique raw energy as well as a fresh approach to the musical style originally pioneered by the great Manouche guitarist Django Reinhardt.
THE ASTHMATIX
Daniel ‘Weltmaschine’ Weltlinger
(violin/effects)
Daniel ‘Planeface’ Pliner
(keys/effects)
Micha ‘Morphingaz’ Walter
(turntables/laptop)
“The Asthmatix offer a delightfully zany take on instrumental hip-hop with their blend of jazz,
sample-driven electronica and traditional Jewish music.”
Erin Felton – Deaf Ambitions
Kingston Avenue meets Utica, an instrumental mix of jazz and Jewish melodies combined with heavy grooves, Chassidic children’s vinyl, turntablism and virtuosic playing. The Asthmatix create an irreverent, off-the-wall-anything-goes brand of contemporary electro-acoustic music blending influences borrowed from klezmer, hip hop, East-European folk music and contemporary jazz. The members of the band have collectively recorded and toured with a diverse range of artists including rapper Aphletik, LA based producer/artist Mocky, Ethiopian singer Dereb Deselegn (Dereb the Ambassador) and German Gypsy guitar legend Lulo Reinhardt amongst many others, which is reflected in the eclectic style of the band in which any and all kinds of sounds and musical influences are included in the mix.
NEW ALBUM RELEASED APRIL 16, 2025: ABACUS EARTHLING AVAILABLE FROM MXDAPE OR FROM YOUR FAVOURITE STREAMING PLATFORMS.
EP: GO TEAM GO AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY, ITUNES, AMAZON and BANDCAMP.
ZOHAR’S NIGUN:
Daniel Weltlinger
(violin/vocals)
Daniel Pliner
(piano)
Simon Milman
(double bass)
Alon Ilsar
(drums/percussion)
‘The Four Questons is in fact the most progressive application of distinctly Yiddish style I’ve ever heard, yet, while spinning the ancient mode out to its farthest reaches, they also manage to preserve its essence and, in doing so, pay lavish tribute to the genius underlying.’
Mark S. Tucker – FAME review
Jazz is a form of music that can blend in with just about any national, cultural or ancient traditional music system. It is a truly democratic, multilingual, multifaceted art form. ‘Zohar’s Nigun’ – literally translated as a song from the depths of one’s soul – is a project that explores the concept of identity in the 21st Century, and what one’s family origins happen to be regardless of where in the world one happens to be based in the increasingly rapid paced mass globalised contemporary reality that is today.
Using the analogy of four ethnically Jewish musicians from multicultural 21st Century Australia – a land populated for an estimated 40-80,000 years by Indigenous tribes – the conceptual point of the band is that every single human being has a family heritage that they belong to that is unique and virtually impossible to simply categorise or generalise about in a simple cliche. No one can simply choose where their parents are from, where they happen to have been born or what their skin colour or ethnicity happens to be. It simply is, it is beautiful and it is meant to be.
Devoid of the usual cultural clichés these four musicians with Jewish heritage from Australia present four very different understandings of an ancient yet ever metamorphosing cultural and ethnic heritage using the common language of jazz and free improvisation. Utilising a sharp sense of humour as well as a deep understanding of history and it’s endless repercussions, the music created by Zohar’s Nigun offers a potent antidote to the destructive nature of prejudice and stereotyping. Shalom!
ALBUM: THE FOUR QUESTIONS AVAILABLE ON SPOTIFY, ITUNES, AMAZON and BANDCAMP.
