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Sample Track 1:
"To You Kasiunia" from People's Spring
Sample Track 2:
"Chassidic Dance" from People's Spring
Sample Track 3:
"Who is Getting Married" from People's Spring
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People's Spring
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Layer 2
Concert Pick

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Chicago Reader, Concert Pick >>

10 PM, MARTYRS’ $10, 21+

 

Warsaw Village Band

 

This young Polish sextet brings a modern urban perspective to the vanishing rural traditions of its native land – hence its name.  The band has built its repertoire by traveling into Poland’s countryside and interviewing people old enough to remember the folk music that flourished before the communist government’s attempts to erase ethnic identity.  While the group’s two violins, upright bass, and suka – an ancient Polish fiddle whose strings are stopped not with the fingertips but with the nails – saw through rapid-fire riffs, simmering drones, and acrobatic melodies, a pair of drummers propel the songs with a pounding ferocity that’s unmistakably rooted in modern dance music.  The three women in the band all sing in an arresting style called bialy glos (“white voice”), a piercing scream once used by mountain-dwelling shepherds to communicate ver long distances, and a host of guests embroider the stomping tunes with dulcimer, hurdy-gurdy, and trumpet.  For an all-acoustic act, the Warsaw Village Bad kicks up an amazing ruckus – I’ve never heard folk revivalists tear it up like this.  Though they don’t use electronics onstage, they’re not afraid of them: their album People’s Spring (World Village), released in the states this year, contains a pair of impressive dance remixes, one Indian flavored, the other pure tribal techno. 

 09/17/04
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