Australian/Indian Bollywood big-band pop troupe The Bombay Royale gave a lesson in Bollywood-style dancing in the Ballroom. Their upbeat, in-your-face power-pop kept bodies wiggling and ears delighting, while their costumes captured eyes and bewildered minds; among the group there was a maritime sailor sax player, a shirtless drummer, a guitar-playing cowboy, and a brass section of masked marauders. The lead singers and saxophonist were highly entertaining as they danced wildly around the stage.

Downstairs in the Marlin Room, The Wu-Force—a hipster trio who dubbed the genre Kung-fu-Appalachian avant-folk—showcased bizarre, captivating, and often utterly beautiful songs that fused little-known traditional Chinese folk music with modern pop and folk music. ("Uyghur-Gaga," for example, combined traditional music from the Uyghur people with none other than—you guessed it—Lady Gaga.) I can't say their music was exactly my cup of tea, but it was interesting nonetheless, and the performers—banjo master Abigail Washburn, guzheng phemon Wu Fei, and piano/trumpet/guitar/electronics doubler Kai Welch—were truly astounding in their musicianship.  

Back in the Studio, Hassan Hakmoun's Gnawa-trance music grooved better with my tastes. The room was packed tighter than the subway at rush hour, which was no matter, because Hakmoun's complex rhythms and hypnotic melodies enveloped the room and held the audience in a wonderfully dreamy daze.

Finally, I made the trek back up to the Ballroom just in time to catch the Ukranian folk-punk quartet DakhaBrakha. It was a peculiar mix of accordions, cello, native drums, and an occasional piano, with the group dressed all in white with guardsman-esque bearskin hats. A truly special experience, their aggressive-yet-mysterious music and intense harmonizations reached deep inside the soul—an extraordinarily powerful music that had a lasting effect on me for the rest of the night.