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Daily Local News, Feature / Concert Preview >>
A swirling blend of Slavic sounds
- By Denny Dyroff
Slavic Soul bills it self as "New York's Official Number One Brass Band for Balkansoulgypsyfunk," and that's as good a description as any for the band's melting-pot sound.
Tonight, the band will make a rare area appear ance at the International House in JPhiladelphia^The group is touring in support of its new album, "Techno-chek Collision" (Barbes Records).
The disc was inspired by Serbian-Gypsy-American auto mechanic and ama teur filmmaker Gus Dejan and is named after his ga rage in New York. It's swirling blend of wild brass passages, Gypsy ac cordion, dance grooves and rock-based tunes.
"The album was recorded in November 2006," said drummer/band leader Matt Moran during a recent call from his hotel room in Paris, "We recorded it very quickly. We knew exactly what we wanted to do. It's easy when you have band that plays together as much as we do.
"This particular lineup has been together for over three years. We have an in credibly diverse range of places we play when we tour - from dive bars across America, to posh palaces in Istanbul, to coin Center in New York.
"Every week, we have gig at a club in Brooklyn called Barbes. For the last three years, we've played there every Tuesday when we're not out on tour. It's always packed."
The group's music has its roots in the Balkan states, and Moran spent a lot of time in Eastern Europe to research the area's rich musical history.
"I started getting inter ested in Eastern European music about 10 years ago," he said. "I've made lot of trips to the Balkans, chasing down cassettes of obscure music. 1 absorb as much as 1 can and spit it back out as Slavic Soul Party.
"Almost all the band's originals have been written by me, and they make up one-third of our repertoire. Another third is our ar rangements of Balkan and Brazilian music. The final third features songs done in a traditional approach."
05/09/07
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