Bluesmen's World(Music)

"Eastern Europe. The Block. Where dissident rockers overthrew the system, elected poets to government, and vanished into freedom… A bloody revolution. Balkanization… Eastern Europe. A thin man, furrow-browed, in white suit, girates about with saxophone, ghost with a rhythmic tic… Thin Man smiles, accosts the fiddler, hangs greasy burek [Balkan fried bread] for all to behold. Accordion soars, clarinet reeds out melodic tango, rhumba, samba. Thin Man bellows into radio mic: "Budapest, Novi Sad, Beograd, Istanbul," beckoning journey on the Orient Express: ball in Vienna via Yugoslavia's exiles depressed at Oktoberfest, over Novi Sad's underwater bridges precision-bombed by NATO, through Belgrade's dictatorship, and onto Istanbul. Welcome to the last night on Earth. You are dancing seductively on an apocalyptic border with Boris Kovac and LaDaABa Orchest. It's music that captures the complicated paradox of polarizations; dancing gleefully with God in a suitcase, standing in a crack among multiple precipices, it's a joyously tearful cacophony headed for the End, no fixed address, yet anchored to a multiethnic region of Serbia perched between historic worlds. It's The Last Balkan Tango, conceived during the NATO bombing, completed in Milosevic's dying days, and Serbia's first ever release on a major world music label (Piranha, 2001)… Boris Kova's drive for a universally accessible new ritual, a third way that allows the individual not to take sides. Kovac clearly throws categorization wide open. A sax player with an experimental background, he doesn't necessarily consider himself world music fare, which might be why The Last Balkan Tango is one of the most captivating world music releases of late. "I do not belong to that genre any more than to another. I do not represent Balkan culture at all. I represent just myself using my life experience related to Balkan political destiny." On what attracted him to Kovac Piranha Records director Borkowsky Akbar says, "We didn't release the album because it is from Serbia, but because we love the music and we were looking for an additional artist to add to our Gipsy & Balkans focus. Boris is perfect because he is a great visionary, composer, musician and producer…"

pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com

From the opening stabs of Boris Kovac's saxophone you know a journey awaits. Never mind the song is called "Intro Trip"; all this Yugoslavian bandleader's excursions are voyages beyond the expected. Nuanced in the subtle insanity of Balkan jazz, his records are more like mental battles. His ability to veer from heartbreakingly gorgeous melodies, fluttering wings of brass symphonies, into breakneck accordion-driven fury is incomprehensible. One can only imagine shifting drunkenly in a tanchez (dance house) in a state somewhere between paranoia and ecstasy. Worm After History, like its predecessors, is a soundtrack to the movie of Kovac's mind. It envisions a sacred space stretching past dualistic thinking; much in Eastern European arts reaches for such climax. Whether strolling gently through "Latina" or falling intoxicated to the Wonderland-ish "Crazy Love Waltz," Kovac creates sonic images of wintertime carousels bouncing to the high-pitched wails of tango-fueled jazz (his last record was, fittingly, titled The Last Balkan Tango). Given these cerebral titles, Kovac is as much philosopher as brassist--he seeks personal spaces which make sense through incoherence. Hence the melancholic opening of "Dukeland in Your Heart." The trio of saxophone, classical guitar and accordion emit a slow, startlingly sad portrait of a decimated planet past the confines of history. To put all this into perspective: the Zen koan, what is the sound of one hand clapping? Of course there's no answer--it's an inner realization that moves us past the realm of linear thought. After you've meditated for a bit, turn on Worm After History for the closest interpretation imaginable.

01. An Intro Trip
02. Latina
03. To Entertain You
04. Limping Waltz
05. Malena (Matic)
06. Crazy Love Waltz (Matic)
07. Dukeland in Your Heart
08. Beguine Again
09. Argentina
10. Dur AA
11. Triesta

Boris Kovac - alto & soprano sax, voice
Goran Penic - accordion
Vukasin Miskovic - classical guitar
Milos Matic - double bass, tamburitza
Istvan Cik - drums, percussion

Special Guests
String Quartet Tajj (3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11)
Bogdan Rankovic - bass clarinet (3, 4, 10)

Link

"Just imagine: The morning after the apocalypse. Are we still alive? We wonder. It would appear so. There´s no end to this world. There´s no rest for the soul. There´s no past. There´s no future. Now is eternal. LaDaABa Orchest offers you the ideal entertainment at the end of time: La Danza Apocalypsá Balcanica."

"It's the morning after the apocalypse and (assuming you've survived) where are you? How are you feeling? That's the idea behind this disc. Boris Kovac is one of the most creative musicians to come out of Serbia, and his music breaks out of the gypsy/village ghetto to which most Balkan sounds are consigned. The second part of his "La Danza Apocalypsa Balcanica Project" shows the quieter, reflective, more rustic and impressionistic side of Kovac. The music on Boris Kovac & Ladaaba Orchestra's Ballads at the End of Time is slow and lovely. It isn't so much about devastation as new hope, although something like the gorgeously wistful "Colour Of Remembrance" looks back, not forward. However, is there anything to look forward to? Possibly not, if the closing track, "At The End Of Time," is to be believed. But if that is the end, we all go out gracefully, on a wave of music. Don't try and categorize this music; it simply won't fit into any pigeonhole. Traces of classical, jazz, gypsy, and more meld in the sonorities as the dogs bark. A wonderful record to make you think about life -- and what could be in our future."

01. Danza Transilvanica
02. I. Interlude
03. Damar Of Istanbul
04. Early Morning Waltz
05. Beguine At The End
06. Interlude At The Gang
07. Midnight Memories
08. Waltz From Careless Street
09. Cha Cha
10. Colour Of Remembrance
11. Broken Waltz
12. The Last Interlude: Doina / In Bukovac
13. At The End Of Time
14. Birds

Musicians:
Bogdan Rankovic - clarinet, bass clarinet
Goran Penic - accordion
Milos Matic - double bass, tamburitza
István Cik - drums, percussion
Oláh Vince - guitar
Boris Kovac - alto, soprano saxes, sampler

Special guests: Nenad Vrbaški - violin (1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13)
Vanja Jakovljevic - guitar (1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11)
Ramiz - darabuka (3)
Coyote (a dog) - voice (1, 6, 12)

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part 2.