Well maybe I’ve come in late but these days we seem to be knee deep in Balkans. We’ve got Balkan Beat Box, Fanfare Ciorcarlia, Fanfare Tirana, a regular club night in Melbourne called the Good The Bad & The Balkan at Horse Bazaar and now the Sandy Lopic Orkestar. Admittedly this is their second album first released in 2004, yet there’ no denying the worldwide interest in Balkan music. Again it’s Balkan brass, a big band with jazz tendencies, 15 odd musicians from various regions within the former Yugoslavia, who apparently formed after coming together in Austria as the orchestra for the Burroughs, Waits and Wilson stage play The Black Rider. Balkea taps into the traditional music of the region yet also adapts it into contemporary funk and jazz, making it this incredibly fusion of styles previously not necessarily all that comfortable together. Yet the arrangement is superb, as the jazz and traditional elements almost baton change between them whilst the rhythm section keeps chugging. There are elongated solos, clarinet, trumpet, violin, piano accordion, Hurdy Gurdy, as the orchestra breaks down into smaller combinations, yet it’s the three female vocalists that just captivate between the furore, with these incredibly sweet harmonies (that at times almost take on Irish melodies) and bawdy vocal lines that just pop up out of the blue occasionally. It almost goes without saying that this is brimming with energy and joy, particularly during these extended seemingly improvised solos. Yet they also dip into quieter darker moods, utilising sub sections of the orchestra and create some incredibly subtle and haunting moments. It’s here where the musicianship of the players really comes to the fore, demonstrating their ability to play at one moment at breakneck speed, the next with a much more delicate textural finesse.
Bob Baker Fish
