Apifera is a name you might not know, but you might be familiar with some of the musicians involved. That’s because Apifera is a project involving Nitai Hershkovits (keys), Yuval Havkin aka Rejoicer (keys), Amir Bresler (drums) and Yonatan Albalak (bass). If you listened to the last Rejoicer album, Spiritual Sleaze, which came out on Stones Throw last February, you’ll find the other three members of Apifera listed in the liner notes as contributing musicians. So it only became natural for them to finally pivot into a live ensemble and record their first official album as a group, Overstand.

While there is a natural continuation from Rejoicer’s solo work, there is a subtle shift going into this first Apifera album. This comes from the emphasis on liveness in the studio and the push into this fusion area of music. Since they have already been working together before this album, you feel a lot of natural chemistry coming through as they play together on Overstand. Composition-wise, Apifera is drawing upon jazz fusion, post rock, and modern classical music, and then adding some healthy doses of hip hop and electronic production for good measure. The result is this avantgarde goodness where it’s best to just put on the headphones, let go, and just trust Apifera to steer the ship to wherever you’re going. We get some additional horn work on a couple of tracks for added flavor, but mostly this is about the musicianship and chemistry of the core group. Each individual musician is quite talented, but their ability to feel each other out, play within the compositions of the songs, and to constantly shift and share the spotlight is really what takes this album over the top. You get taken on all sorts of twists and turns as the music unfolds, but it never feels forced – everything is connected, and they are always building towards something, so the results always feel earned by the time you get there.

Apifera have made an excellent statement with their first album in Overstand. They have carved out their own unique musical niche, and they’ve established themselves as an ensemble to watch out for.