Trading under the ‘Balkan’ brand is a difficult game, write an instant, catchy pop song without an accordion in sight and there’ll be a small contingent lining up to throw you under the bus.
New Yorker/Israeli Balkan Beat Box have spent the last few years sculpting out a niche in the world music scene by putting out consistently inventive pop music that draws, almost understated, influence from a vast range of traditions.
As if they have plotted the musical journey from New York to Jerusalem; negotiating harmonies, inhaling melodies, digesting rhythms.
And so the first offering from forthcoming album ‘Give’ (due March 5th). Creaky synths wobble away briefly before a cheeky trumpet break ticks the Balkan box for the purists and then we’re off.
Where to? Nowhere far, this isn’t trail-blazing stuff, it’s more of a stroll around a lively neighbourhood; one where the struggles and hopes of the people contrast with a colour and chaos whilst boom-boxes compete for airspace.
Grungy loud-hailer vocals rant over a stripped back verse before giving way to a heck of a catchy chorus which should move even the hardest of hearts and the whitest of people.
Whilst it seems unusual to release an obvious summer ‘hit’ so early in the year it works, especially the sentimental influence of sounds from the past 10 years, there’s a degree of 1999 about it (anyone remember Len, New Radicals, The Wiseguys? It’s ok, no-one’s judging you), a healthy splash of RATM and a stripped back production which resembles elements of Beastie Boys or even the Go! team.
It’s catchy, fun, and has got us well excited about the album. Winner.
Recently uncovered this Boban I Marko Markovic Orkestar video that has recently made it’s way out from the Romani mahala (neighbourhood) of Vladicin Han in Southern Serbia and can now be found jostling amongst the pimple-squeezing, bedroom karaoke-singing, wobbly gig footage world of Youtube.
This in itself is of no major significance; Boban and Marko are the biggest names within a Serbian brass band tradition that makes the current UK Dubstep explosion look like a quaint scene that could do with a little more exposure, and as such inarguably warrant some nifty promo videos to support their splendid Balkan Brass Funk and encourage some more nerdy Western Europeans to fork out fifteen quid for their newest releases.
There is a particular significance though to this particular video and its implications which, whilst subtle, convey an interesting view of where this tradition may be being led by the pied pipers of Vladicin Han.
Musically, Cocek Sljivovica shows the range of contemporary influence that 26-year-old Marko has bought to his father’s sound since joining the Orkestar in 2002: Elements of South American carnival ooze between the stomping brass riffs and Marko alternates between rapping in the gang vocal style so adored by the Balkan scene[1] and crooning in the fluid, open way of a seasoned wedding singer.
And it sounds proper, this isn’t a 50-something guy trying to sound groovy, it’s a 20-something guy who just is groovy.
Visually, however, it’s a case study in what may appear to be the Balkan Brass bandwagon beginning to veer off the muddy country track that’s kept it so beloved by the West’s Birkenstock-wearing chai-tea-drinkers and Serbian nationalists alike.
The video is not the usual collage of live footage and shaky Handycam scenes with even shakier acting that we’ve grown accustomed to. Far from it, it aspires to be a glossy HD international-standard promo, and of course why not? They want to be global pop stars, and I’m not for a second going to suggest that they are artifacts who should be kept in their village and only let out when supervised by an appointed ethnomusicologist. But, for the love of God, please not like this.
Within nano-seconds of pressing play the promo descends into an inexplicable series of scenes revolving around a swimming pool, a barbeque and a ‘prestige’ car that looks suspiciously like a Ford Focus with Mercedes logos taped onto the hubcaps.
In a feat of logic that would’ve confounded Captain Beefheart himself, the chosen compliments to these scenes are Balkan Santa, who looks on gleefully at a plate of grilled meets in front of him, a series of Yugobabes parade around in front of a spit-roasting hog and all the while Marko is clowning around in his car like a sixth former outside the school gates.
Obviously there is a liberal amount of tongue-in-cheek about the video, and it’s designed to showcase the quirkiness and party spirit of Balkan Brass Band Music; however the problem arrives when we consider that Marko Markovic is a ground-breaking musician, doing remarkably intelligent, progressive, and yes, fun things with a traditional music.
However, by creating a super-slick promotional video of this style he is inverting what we hear from a fascinating, groovy instrumental style into slightly naff commercial pop.
If, like he says, Markovic really is serious about taking this music forward and potentially becoming as much of a global pop star as the likes of Manu Chao or even Santana then he needs to do what all pop stars have done since the death of Ziggy Stardust and consider what consumers actually want and not what he personally aspires to. This means that the whole package has to be there; great tunes, a relevant image and a narrative that people can accept and identify with.
Be tongue-in-cheek, but, for goodness sake, just don’t look like you’re taking it so seriously.
[1] See Mahala Rai Banda, Balkan Beat Box, Gogol Bordelo
The Danish/Serbian band Tako Lako had come recommended by Balkan DJ ‘Dr Malaka’ at a Shantel gig a couple of weeks before hand. “They’re fantastic, one of the best” he’d said as he slipped a flyer into my hand. Bold claim from a man who knows about these things, so is he right?
With Hackney’s ‘New Empowering Church’ only a convenient hour and fifteen minute journey away from our South London door step it is with the burden upon my shoulders of a guaranteed great night out that I drag myself and assorted housemates and girlfriends onto the Northern Line with a bottle of Napoleon brandy and the kind of coats you only wear out when you’re not eighteen any more.
Balkanbeat classics have been on rotation since we arrived and an hour and a half later there is a tangible thirst for live music in the air; the clunk of a manhandled microphone, the chesty thud of the kick drum, the breath noise before the first note breaks out the saxophone…
As movement appears near the stage the crowd abandons any hope of getting in a second round and begins to peel away from the criminally short bar to get a good view. I say good view, but who are we kidding? We don’t need to see them, we need to feel them!
With bodies packed tight and second-hand whiskey-coke tinged breath the only oxygen supply, I’m not ashamed to say that the next 45 minutes (or possibly hour and a half, or possibly 20 minutes, or possibly 3 hours, you get the picture…) flew by in a blur of dizzy mad ecstacy. What I can tell you is that opener ‘Rupa je Rupa’ is a bloody banger, riding the right side of the often risky Balkan/Ska line its the perfect vehicle for whipping up white middle-class art students into a damn frenzy.
Think of it, if you will, as the stimulating equivalent of being woken up by a lingerie model slapping you across the face with a Double Sausage & Egg McMuffin.
I took friends who had never been to a Balkan/Gypsy night before, let alone Eastern Europe (one of them, it’s rumored has never been east of Wapping), and they couldn’t stop raving about it and how they had ‘never danced so much.’ So, despite that I’m about to shoot down this love fest, it’s important to stress that as live events go you’re not going to experience many better this side of the EU health and safety regulations.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, but certainly disappointingly, the recorded versions of the Tako Lako experience, which I rushed to listen to the following morning, leave the listener a little flat. Yes, they’re perfectly played, well arranged and sensibly produced but there is a hole and the Bolivian dead philosopher Oscar Ichazo knew what it was when he stated 30 years ago that, “Nothing is equal to both of two different things”. He was bloody right you know.
Tako Lako are very good indeed, the crowd were very good indeed, together it was sensational and nothing could equal it. The record didn’t stand a hope.
Gypsy dubstep? Well, this could go one of two ways… Thankfully it’s an absolute gem. Sam and the Womp have moulded strutting balkanbrass riffs around a tasteful womping bassline and held it all together with tight and funky drums to move the feet and the spirit.
Bit late on the review of this one, but almost a year down the line it still warrants a hearty recommendation.
Avoiding one of the stock pitfalls of the ‘gypsy’ scene, Sam and the Womp have engaged their pop-brains and rounded up the track at 3 mins 30, which only serves to emphasise the delicious hit of groove and leave a taste of bass in your mouth that will last for days.
