Budapest-based Romano Drom
is from the Olah Romany people, who lived in Romania until the middle
of the 19th century, before migrating to Hungary. Their musical heritage
is decidedly vocal, since the only instruments used by the Olah were
percussive, consisting of churns, spoons -- anything but specific
instruments. It's only in the last 40 years that the adventurous young
Olah have taken up real instruments, and the result is the music of this
band, who in many ways seem to have more in common with the
guitar-based flamenco music of their Spanish cousins than most Central
European gypsies. Bandleader Anti is powerful on the fretboard, and the
others (including accordion, bass, percussion, and butter churn players)
back him up well on this set of traditional music. While they've
updated their heritage, they haven't abandoned it by any means -- the
vocals, and the interplay between voices (although real instruments have
largely replaced voices imitating instruments), remain the same. The
seven-piece certainly doesn't sound like anyone else, and there's a
touching beauty about some of their material, while other songs drive
hard. Now that they've established themselves with one disc, it'll be
interesting to see how they develop their sound
aCá
Friday, April 04, 2014
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment