“Epic” might be the biggest understatement when referring to Warsaw Village Band’s award-wining (Best newcomer, BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music) sojourn through big-brass/dulcimer/bass/fiddle Polish folk. Based in Poland’s lowland Mazovia region, these six youngsters felt the area’s pre-Communist homegrown orchestral tunes were only serving dated generations and needed a modern fix.  Borrowing songs from Mazovian village musicians, they layered eclectic elements atop/behind interspersed “white voice” singing (a lyrical screaming used by Polish shepherds). These fusions result in what they dub “hardcore folk”, driving fiddle and trumpet led refrains backed by dhol, baraban and frame drum rhythms.  Whether performing wedding songs (“To You Kasiunua”), signing about eternally lost youth (“At My Mother’s), or finding the Polish-Indian mystic/music trance connection (the remixed “Matecka”), People’s Spring spirals further and farther into a floor-stomping open plains serenade inhabiting all the qualities of Balkan jazz while retaining none of the pomposity of ceremonially reserved music. Warsaw’s interest is in modernization and through using timework tools of trade, there explorations into digitalism and unnerving dedication to culturally-expansive progression is second only to the actual. Beautiful album itself.

Derek Beres