Soundtreks: Balkan Bordellos

By Sarah Bardeen

May 18, 2010 3:38 PM

Spring has sprung and new albums seem to be sprouting up like dandelions in the lawn of, um, some tortured analogy. (Okay, let's leave analogies to the poets.) It's been a mixed season in the worldly realm, with some false starts and some great surprises. Let's tour through them.

First, the Eastern Europeans: Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box and Kottarashky all have new releases out. To my ears, Gogol Bordello have always verged on self-parody, which I suppose is partly the point. You may have to be more than a little drunk to enjoy this band properly. Maybe Chuck Eddy's been hitting the Slivovitz, but he definitely enjoyed their latest, Trans-Continental Hustle. On the other end of the spectrum are Balkan Beat Box, who want to party as hard as Gogol Bordello, but they also want to fit in with the Burning Man crowd. Perhaps too much. I can't quite understand the Blue Eyed Black Boy thing, and the head-scratching title track did nothing to enlighten me. But then they get all mixy-mixy — like, say, playing cumbia — and return to their Balkan folk inspirations, and I'm off and dancing again.

But for my money, the most interesting Balkan fusion album out there right now is Kottarashky's Opa Hey! It actually released back in November, but it's been climbing European world music charts this spring. Kottarashky is a Bulgarian architect born Nikola Gruev. Gruev's got a deft touch with the samples, and Opa Hey! is vastly more engaging and textured than, I'd venture to say, all the Balkan beats compilations out there. In a way, Gruev is doing with Balkan folk what Nortec have been up to with regional Mexican music: using it as clay to sculpt a new electronic sound, rather than as spice to bolster sagging beats. Gruev truly understands the source material he's stitching back together; it makes a difference.

Meanwhile, on the Latin end of the spectrum, there's a lot to praise. Chilean emcee Ana Tijoux's going to get more love in a later column, so keep an eye out. Latin funk/fusion/rap/kitchen-sinkers Ozomatli just put out what is basically a pop album: Fire Away. (The Jack Johnson collaboration tipped us off.) It's good, but if you're in search of serious Latin funk/fusion-type stuff, you're going to have to wait for Grupo Fantasma's El Existential, out on June 15th. And electro-tango pioneer Gotan Project are back with Tango 3.0. The group doesn't exactly mess with their formula as much as you'd expect, but they do deliver another luxurious album that'll make you feel like you're travelling business class to Buenos Aires. And even if you don't like fado — all that lugubrious sentiment and maudlin singing — you might give Ana Moura's Leva-Me Aos Fados a spin. She keeps most of her songs to three minutes and somehow gives them hooks. Plus, Prince and Mick Jagger like her.

I've saved the best for last. Uruguayan-born, Spain-residing singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler has a new album out, Amar La Trama, more freshly orchestrated than anything he's ever done. Same lyrical style: he's agape at the wonder of life, in a quiet and smart way, but also a little hardened. It's not every day somebody takes such pleasure in the phrase "I don't worry about a thing/ Because nothing's going to be all right." But it's the first time I've heard him with a live band that fits — horns, the whole nine yards. It was recorded live in a TV studio in Madrid, which always captures Drexler at his best. Gorgeous. And, finally, the master: Tony Allen, the man who put the beat in Afrobeat, comes with an album, Secret Agent, that vaporizes his faithful followers.