Bluesmen's World(Music)

Coming from the predominantly Irish neighborhoods of South-Side Chicago, the Tossers have been expanding the boundaries of contemporary Irish music since the early '90s. The band chose their name for its derogatory meaning of ?throw away. The term dates back to Shakespeare and depending on who you ask it also means commode, drunk or the bunk British currency the Irish rejected after their independence in the 1920s.

Although their name may be irreverent, their music certainly is not. The heart of their distinct sound is derived through the melding of traditional Irish and Punk Rock roots. Combining traditional instrumentation of mandolin, fiddle, tin whistle and banjo with amphetamine fueled guitar, bass and drums, the Tossers play with a furious edge that teeters between rage and raucousness.

With over 15 years of the music grind behind them, the Tossers are a staple in the Celtic Punk and Folk scenes. Currently the band has five full length albums, the newest of which is "Agony" their second release on Victory Records.

While their live shows are fueled with a little bit of blood and sweat and a whole lot of whiskey and beer, their albums are dedicated to musical elegance and provocation. Possessing the ability to masterfully employ stark tempo changes from the brink of the insane to the solemness of an Irish ballad, the Tossers are an act that does not disappoint in print or in person.

Never afraid to take on new challenges at any venue for any audience the Tossers have had an eclectic past playing with acts such as the legendary Pogues, Spider Stacy (solo), the Popes, the Dropkick Murphy's, Stiff Little Fingers, Black 47 and Flogging Molly. In addition to this Irish menagerie they've also toured with hardcore favorites like Clutch and Murphy's Law; rockabilly icons Reverend Horton Heat and the Horror Pops; SKA classics like the Pie Tasters, Reel Big Fish and Catch 22; and moody rock n' rollers Murder By Death. The list goes on, as does the band.

"The Tossers are slowly getting their props as an American treasure. Too often lumped into the Celtic-rock scene as just another Pogues or Flogging Molly ripoff, actually they have been around for over 12 years, and are only now getting the press they deserve. Singer/Mandolin player Tony Dugginss songwriting has improved with each record (and on his intense solo release last year) and the songs here are some of the best in their canon. Perhaps because a lot of these tunes were played live for months before recording, the band is tight and raw, each member contributing to the tunes with subtle touches that could only have come from having lived with the songs for awhile. Ballads of love lost and shame encountered; stomping punk jigs that celebrate fall-down drunkenness as an act of glory; from the South Side of Chicago, The Tossers reach to the gutters and churches of Dublin and back again with another classic. Love them now, then have some whiskey and love them forever."

Mike Wood

01. Never Enough
02. Pub and Culture
03. Shade
04. Did it All For You
05. The Sheep in the Boots
06. Not Forgotten
07. Siobhan
08. Traps and Ultimatums
09. Leopardstown Races
10. Claddagh
11. Where Ya Been Johhny?
12. Not Alone
13. Political Scum
14. Romany
15. Movin' On
16. The Nut House
17. Be

Mike Pawula: Guitar
T. Duggins: Voice/Mandolin
Aaron Duggins: Tin Whistle
Danny Shaw: Bass/Backing Vocals
Bones: Drums
Rebecca: Violin
Clay: Banjo

Link

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Mihály DRESCH is a Hungarian saxophone player who mixes the American free-jazz tradition with elements of traditional Hungarian folk music.
The album of the acknowledged jazz saxophonist and composer, influenced by Hungarian folk music and Indian music.

1. Ködöllik a Mátra
2. Ritka madár
3. Naív
4. Le az utcán
5. Prana

Mihály DRESCH - tenor and soprano sax, bass clarinet, flute, vocals
Miklós LUKÁCS - cimbalom
Mátyás SZANDAI - double bass
István BALÓ - drums

Featuring:
Sándor CSÓRI "Sündi" - viola
Félix LAJKÓ - violin
Antal BRASNYÓ - viola
Péter SZALAI - tabla

Link

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"Germany and Russia haven't had a history of amicable relationships through the years. The twentieth century was a particularly bad time, as each took turns in occupying the other for extended periods. However, this hasn't stopped Russian musicians being welcomed when they've gone searching for greener pastures in the West as they look to make a living from their craft. Which explains how the Russian group Ersatzmusika comes to be based out of Berlin Germany and is about to release their second CD, Songs Unrecatable, on the German label Asphalt-Tango.

If you download one of the first things you'll notice is the lyrics are in English, and that's not because they've been translated, it's because almost all the songs on Songs Unrecantable are sung in that language. Although to be honest lead singer Doubrovskaja's accent is so thick that if you're only listening casually chances are you're going to assume she's singing in Russian. To be fair, it's not just her accent, the music the band plays is so different from what most of us are used to hearing when it comes to Eastern European folk, the combination of the two makes for a sound so alien to our ears you can be easily forgiven for not noticing she is singing in English.

Before anyone starts jumping to any conclusions about brooding Russians or anything equally stupid, by mood I'm referring to the fact that Doubrovskaja sounds likes a Russian accented Marlene Dietrich. Yet while both she and Dietrich evoke smoke filled cabarets with dim lights, musically, lyrically the two women are miles apart. For while the former's stock in trade was sultry love songs, the latter's lyrics drip irony onto music that tastes of a little bit of everything from Balkan beat box to traditional folk sounds. There's actually something eerily familiar about Ersatzmusika's overall sound that escaped me for the longest time, until it struck me how much they reminded me of The Doors in their slower and more pensive moments.

While they might share certain characteristics with other performers and have drawn upon various styles, it's doubtful you've ever heard anything quite like Ersatzmuzika before.

Where one has come to expect a lively sound inspired by polka's, the heady influence of gypsy violins, or other rural traditions, you find moody, atmospheric sounds which are a far more accurate reflection of life today. The lyrics in turn are a match for this sound as they offer commentary on humanity's checkered history and uncertain future.
The opening lines of "Gypsy Air", the first track on the CD, give you a good idea of the band's appraisal of our past: "Woe filled times we must abide / woe betide him who knows not this...Let us compile a list/Of the wrongs that man commits / Never shying ignominy / Clipped the wings, ducked the tail/Little boy, Nagasaki."

However it's not only the past they are concerned with as they capture the true price of the greed and materialism that plagues today a little later in the same song with the following lines, "That tenderness' needs must contrast / With tender, its negation."
I don't think I've heard a condemnation of a system that puts selling above caring phrased so succinctly and directly before. Now, lest you think they're only a one note band, they also show themselves capable of being darkly humorous. "Oh Pterodactyl", track seven, is a darkly delightful examination of our genealogy. "There has of late been much debate / Bout what is round and what is straight / And why no politician / Could have a forebear simian / But oh pterodactyl / To you we owe a / Oh pterodactyl / A debt of honour / Oh pterodactyl / Although that Noah / Oh pterodactyl / Wants to disown ya."

t's hard to describe the experience of listening to Songs Unrecantable by Ersatzmusika simply because there's not much else like them around to offer up as a comparison. Their accents mark them as Eastern European, and there are elements of their music that reflect that heritage, but not in the way we've grown accustomed to hearing them as presented by world music labels. This is an edgier, more contemporary, and urban sound which, while it doesn't discount its heritage, uses it as its springboard to something new instead of just recreating what's been done before. It's only fitting though considering their song's lyrics, which are not only predominately in English to allow for more universal comprehension, are also far more relevant to today's world than what we're used to.

Recently we've seen how young musicians from backgrounds as diverse as Balkan and Roma have begun to make their sound more contemporary while maintaining a connection to their traditional music. Ersatzmuzika is on the leading edge of the movement intent on proving anything old can be new again and in the process are creating some great music."

Richard Marcus

01. Songs on a Gypsy Air
02. Wild Grass
03. Train-slow Adagio
04. It's the Russian Beat
05. Berceuse
06. Tver (feat. Unterwasser)
07. Pterodactyl
08. HMS RIP DTs
09. Winter
10. Unredeemed
11. Letter from Baltimore (feat. Unterwasser)
12. Antediluvian
13. Incantation vs. Causation

Leonid Soybelman - guitar
Ruslan Kalugin - guitar
Phil Freeborn - guitar
Konstantin Orlov - bass
Michail Zhukov - drums, percussion
Irina Doubrovskja - vocals, accordion, piano, keyboards
Thomas Cooper - vocals

Link

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"Once known as "the only country band" on Flying Nun (Trail of Tears in 90, their sole album for the label), this ongoing project of Brian and Maryrose Crook has progressively taken a darker and deeper path the past decade.

These 10 songs owe debts to old murder ballads, the Velvet Underground and the Doors, acoustic Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt and Marianne Faithfull.

With eerily plucked banjo (the haunting, southern gothic of A Little to the Left), a dense guitar drone and unsettling organ (A Forest of Forests), stalking bass and disturbing electronics (the soundscape of Sargasso Sea), and vocals from down a dark hall (Harvesting the Sea), this can be as creepy as it is cathartic.
They also carve out driving rock (Fu Man Chu, Deep Deep Sea, Feels Like Fun which sounds like 1976 Dylan fronting the Meat Puppets) but mostly this comes out from the shadows.

Better known in the US, where they recently toured, than they are back home, the Renderers occupy rock-noir territory similar to Nick Cave's. But when Maryrose takes the vocals there is an even more unnerving juxtaposition between her singing and the menacing lyrics and music.
Sort of Nancy 'n' Lee with the spirit of early Lou Reed as a ghostly presence.
Not for everyone, but far too good to be embraced abroad and left to languish in their homeland."

01.Deep Hole
02.A Little to the Left
03.A Forest of Forests
04.Fu Manchu
05.Sargasso Sea
06 Five Good Hours
07.Deep Deep Sea
08.Feels Like Fun
09.Harvesting The Sea
10.Supernova

Bass - John Billows
Drums - Michael Daly
Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals - Brian Crook
Guitar, Vocals - Maryrose Crook

Link

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Music, for a play but complete enough on its own, telling the life story of fictional Provençal character Maurin, by Provençal sax/flute player Montanaro using classical, renaissance and various traditional European influences, featuring a Slovak Chamber Orchestra and, somewhat dinner-jacketed in this context, Hungarian bands Vujicsics and Ghymes.

Miqueu Montanaro plays many instruments: alto saxophone, accordion, varoius flutes and others curiosities. The instrument speaks the language Montanaro taught it : jazz, music from east of Europe and improvised music.

01. Maurin des Maures
02. Mauresca
03. Parlo sourlet
04. Lei bofets
05. Lo fuoc
06. Bomians e Carboniers
07. Lei - Chivaus Frus -
08. Les gendarmes
09. Scotisch de l'auberge
10. La sirene et le faune
11. Romance
12. Maurin des Maures (Reprise)
13. Lo Manteu de Sant Martin
14. Dins l'auberga
15. La bravade
16. Fanfarnette
17. Mauresca
18. La chanson de Maurin
19. La mort de Maurin

Miquéu Montanaro : flutes, saxophone, galoubet-tambourin, accordion

Vujicsics Ensemble:
Eredics Gábor - accordéon, tambura, percussion,
Eredics Kálmán - contrabasse, derbouka
Brczán Miroszláv - cello tambura,
Szendrődi Ferenc - bratsch, tambura
Győri Károly : tambura solo,
Borbély Mihály - clarinette, saxo soprano

Ghymes:
Szarka Tamás - violon, koboz,
Szarka Gyula - contrebasse
Behr László - cymbalum, percussion,
Nagy Mihály - clarinette, tambour
Buják Andor - clarinette, bratsch (alto)

Link

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Big thanks Frankie for the CD!

Bulgarian folk music contains a special mixture of the musical traditions of Europe and Asia. In the folk music of Bulgarian Illyrian, Greek, Byzantie, Turkish, and Thracian element can be found. The balkan is a bridge between Europe and Asia, thus it is normal that both cultures had and still have had their effects on it.

The 500 years Turkish rule over Bulgarian inspired and stimulated the folk music in the country. Music, singing and dancing were the way of expression and th artistic connection among people in those hard days. All of them had their important role in the everyday life.
Some of the songs were sung on religous feasts, social events, while others helped the monotonous work in the fields and in the spining room. There were also dance tunes, for which people could dance for even an hour. The "table song" were sung at convival evenings, engagements and christening feasts - a good singer was always a welcome guests at these events. Charasteristic music instruments are: goatskin bagpipe, kaval, tambura, duduk, gadulka (violin from the balkan), zuma (Turkish flute), tapan (double-bottomed drum) and tarambuka (side drum).

On album we would like to illustrate a part of the folk music from the Balkan featuring mostly the part-songs of South-West Bulgaria.

01. Ogrejala Meszecsinka - Feljött a Hold
02. Peter i Penka - Péter és Penka
03. Podje Jane - Elment Jane
04. Pcselice - Méhecske
05. Sznosti e Dobra - Este Dobra...
06. Taja Gora Bogdanova - Bogdán erdejében
07. Zalibi Szi Edno Libe - Szerelmes vagyok
08. Prela Baba Tri Godini - Három évig...
09. A Bre Babo - Jaj jóasszony
10. Gine Gine - Ej Gine
11. Sto e Ogrejela - Feljött a hold
12. Veter Pro - Nagy vihar
13. Georgina
14. Tragal Mi Jane - Elindul Jane
15. Szadila Moma - A lányka
16. Jermelija
17. Szokol - Sólyom
18. Raszti Bore - Nőjj fenyőfa
19. Odesi Moma Pavlina - Megy Pavlina

Bognár Szilvia - vocal
Farkas Tünde - vocal
Izsák Katalin - vocal
Szluka Judit - vocal

Búzás Attila - tambura
Németh György - kaval, bagpipe
Orczy Géza - tambura, tapan, darabuka

Link

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The band was formed of young people living in Szabolcs-Szatmár county and Budapest in 1989. The members of Ternipe are native gipsy young people who strive to make their folk music and folk songs become widely known. It was necessary for them to establish such band in order to popularize the authentic gipsy culture and overcome prejudice with fostering their mothertongue and rich culture. Their aim was to keep traditional communal and regional values. Their ambition now is to make people recognize the existing gipsy folk tradition including songs and instrumental folk muisc. The band’s sound system is unique since the fifth and thirds brings such interpretation of music that you can only meet in Far-Eastern or Balkan culture.

Ternipe can be characterized by songs in gipsy language, among the instruments they prefer accordion, violin, double bass, viola and instrument imitating things like the so-called ’rolling’ and ’mouth bass’, as well as the usage of cans or spoons to replace instruments. At the beginning, the band gave shows in camps, youth clubs and arts centres, then they got several foreign invitation as well. Gradually, they became popular.

01. Haj de Romania
02. Dukhal muro jilo
03. Tula
04. Na gindyin muri gazsi
05. Adyes me pijav
06. Suno san tu
07. Csak te kellesz nekem
08. Numa tusa
09. O barvalo shavo
10. Sikav lasho drom
11. Kalyi shej
12. Avri phenav e lumake
13. Ma este en mulatok
14. Sostar pusaves tut

Balogh Mária - Song
Balogh Tünde - Song
Farkas István - Song, Guitar, mandolin
Sztojka László - Doublebass
Lakatos Gyula - Keyboards
Lakatos Béla – Kettle
Bihari Zsolt - Guitar, Song

Link

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VeDaKi (Vershki Da Koreshki) is a meeting of different cultures, rhythms, languages, energies, forces of the world (Africa, India, Russia, Tuva, Europe), and joining them together in search of natural understanding and communication, link between traditional and modern, roots and improvisation (not without humour and hope).
It was planted as an experiment; it stayed alive; it keeps giving its fruits.

"Any improvisation comes from tradition
Any tradition implies improvisation
Any living specie takes their form
Any living specie contains them both
All living species share them "

01.Xame Nge - Golubka
02.Samm - Mak
03.Mariama
04.Zalivochka - Buleen nu Tanqal
05.Djougal
06.Mlada - Faleme
07.Papa Ndiaye
08.Adunna - Kak u nas
09.Jot na - Posledny Denechek [Last Day]
10.Zaglyanet li solnce - Dundu ak Dee
11.Djibanee

Accordion, Piano [Acoustic Piano], Jew's Harp, Flute [Reed Flutes],Talking Drum - Alexei Levin
Double Bass - Vladimir Volkov
Vocals, Xalam, Instruments [M'bira, Kongoma, Calebasse], Talking Drum, Horn [Cow Horn], Flute - Mola Sylla
Vocals, Zither, Flute - Sergey Starostin

Link

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"Well, it had to happen sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before the world would experience its first Japanese klezmer big band, and what a joy it is. Saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu, in some ways the John Zorn of Japanese avant-garde jazz (he's worked with many of the downtown New York crowd), assembled Betsuni Nanmo Klezmer, a 19-piece ensemble, and delivered Ahiru, a joyous explosion of klezmer tunes as seen from afar. "Odessa Bulgarish," a ripsnorting dance number, leads off the disc, a wonderful basis for strong solos and extremely tight arrangements. The next two pieces are both fantastic in and of themselves and display awesome chutzpah: "Tum Balalayke" and "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn." The sheer nerve in trotting out these warhorses, replete with Yiddish and English vocals, would be enough to make one bow one's head in admiration, but Umezu pulls them off with such aplomb, good humor, and imagination that the listener just shakes his head in amazement. The compositions combine a solid conviction in the music with freewheeling imagination in such a way that a klezmer fan presented with them in a blindfold test would arguably be very hard-pressed to identify them as being of Asian origin. Ahiru is a very fine argument for the idea of klezmer music being transcendent over national and cultural boundaries. When they close with "Dos Geshrey Fun der Vilder Katshke," a ridiculously fantastic arrangement of Mickey Katz' parodied Western song "The Cry of the Wild Goose," one has -- almost -- become inured to the shock, the gall. Then one collapses into helpless, overjoyed laughter. An amazing album."

Brian Olewnick, All Music Guide

01. Odessa Bulgarish (traditional)
02. Tum Balalayke (traditional)
03. Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn
04. Kandel's Hora (traditional)
05. A Nakht in Gan Eydn
06. Dos Geshrey Fun der Vilder Katshke

Kazutoki Umezu: clarinet, bass clarinet (4), alto saxophone (3, 6)
Wataru Okuma: clarinet, bass clarinet (3, 4)
Kazuhiro Nomoto: baritone saxophone bass clarinet (4)
Kanji Nakao: soprano saxophone
Takero Sekijima: tuba, alto horn (4)
Hiroshi Itaya: trombone
Yoko Tada: alto saxophone
Ayumi Matsui: violin
Yuriko Mukojima: violin
Hidehiko Urayama: banjo
Chan Koyo: accordion
Jyoji Sawada: double bass
Yasuhiko Tachibana: double bass
Yasuo Sano: kit drums
Yasuhiro Yoshigaki: kit drums
Sachiko Nagata: marimba, percussion
Yoko Ishizaki: marimba, percussion
Koichi Makigami: vocal
Nammy Tokyo: vocal

Link

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