Dona Dumitru Siminica – Sounds From A Bygone Age Vol.3 (Asphalt Tango/Planet MGM)

Sure he looks like an aging mafia don, but the first thing that strikes you about Dona Dumitru Siminica is his extraordinary voice. I’ve never heard anything like it, a sweeping falsetto, half wail, half androgynous purr, that fills you with an overwhelming sense of longing and sorrow. It’s a goose bump inducing sound that plumbs the very depths of your soul, that somehow seems to tease out your sorrow and hurt, yet offers you some kind of whimsical hope. And I get all that without understanding a single word that he intones. It’s the third in Asphalt Tango’ Sounds From a Bygone Age series, in which they rediscover long lost treasures of Eastern European Gypsy music. This release however takes the series to a whole new level, with Siminica offering his drinking songs for lovers and the lovelorn, his suburban blues that were incredibly popular thanks to his ability to sing in both Romanian and gypsy languages. As usual Asphalt Tango package this disc with some great liner notes providing some context to this amazing release, and of course the cover is a time capsule in itself, rivalling the first in the series, Ione Petre Stoican for the album artwork of the year award. The music, Romanian gypsy wedding music and love ballads, with accordion, violin, bass and cymbalom is incredibly evocative and the perfect foil to Siminica’ strange and beautiful voice.