Warsaw Village Band
People’s Spring (World Village)

“Epic” might be the biggest understatement when referring to Warsaw Village Band’s award winning (Best Newcomer, BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music) sojourn through big-brass/dulcimer/bass/fiddle Polish folk.  Based in Poland’s owland Mazovia region, these six youngsters felt the area’s pre-Communist homegrown orchestral tunes where 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 (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 moderization and, though using time worn tools of trade, their explorations into digitalism and unnerving dedication to culturally-expansive progression is second only to the actual, beautiful album itself.