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Feature: It's Time to Do The Balkan Beat
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Alarm Magazine, Feature: It's Time to Do The Balkan Beat >>
By: Matt Ness
America, the gypsies are coming, and when they do, the world as you know it will be upended. But this time they're not going to travel here by horse cart, boat, or airplane. They're not going to roll into an empty house down the street and fill it with raucous noise and midnight anarchy. No, this time, it'll be different. They're going to come in the form of your own children. It may start when your daughter abruptly declares herself a "frontierswoman of the 21st century," starts dressing up in many-colored peasant blouses, and takes to dancing on tables at that strange bar at the edge of town, where she croons crooked arias of dire heartbreak and bloody revenge in a language you've never heard before. Or perhaps it'll be your son, whose hasty decision to ditch his acoustic guitar in favor of a violin is quickly followed by his taking to the streets with a massive Gypsy-punk marching band whose stated goal is to "deconstruct heirarchies, lubricate the lovehorn, and battle the forces of evil." Sound far fetched?
Well, consider the mysterious case of Zach Condon of Santa Fe, New Mexico. At age 18, Condon drops out of his first year of community college and uses his remaining savings to run off to Paris and is struck by a life-changing musical epiphany. He returns to the U.S. with stacks of CDs by Balkan brass bands and Romani folk musicians and proceeds to spend hours in his bedroom learning to mimic the drunken trumpets and crazy mandolin bits that he hears there. Before much longer, he's crafted his own songs, has renamed himself Beirut, and has released Gulag Orkestrar (Ba Da Bing!), which rapidly makes its mark as one of the more critically acclaimed inde pop debuts of 2006. And now, of course, he's touring the country with a 10-piece band, deconstructing heirarchies, lubricating lovehorn types, and...well, you know the rest.....
Elsewhere in New York, bands and artists are meshing ancient Roma melodies and traditional Balkan rhythms together with a wide variety of genres to create distinctly appealing music. For example, on the self-titled debut by Balkan Beat Box (Jdub)--another band that is well known for its sensational live performances--elements of Middle Eastern, Eastern European, and klezmer music are dropped into the soundclash blender with hip-hop, dub, breakbeat, and techno to explosive effect... 10/01/06
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