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Written in fRoots issue 199/200, 2000

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Balkans Without Borders
Omnium OMM 2024 (1999)

After a morning of working down the review pile and wondering whether I’d lost my zest for recorded music, the burst of high-energy rhythm, choppy fiddle and tight-throated Balkan female vocals of the splendidly-named Charming Hostess’ 2½ minute scamper of the Pirin song Dali Tzerni that opens Balkans Without Borders reassured me. Hugely.
      It doesn’t let up, either. Straight on almost without a break into Zabe I Babe’s equally snappy and bold Sjaj Mjesece, then Brave Combo’s Polish polka song Hosa Dyna, Immigrant Suns’ Surfin’ Albania, Finland’s Slobo Horo hitting the Rom song Esma, and an almost raï-like Albanian love-song from Grupi Albanët.
      That’s only the first six tracks. The rest of the twenty-one include a manic one-minute speed-horo from Norway’s dazzling Farmers Market, surprising techno-bouzouki with Essex Serbo-Croat vocals from Széki Kurva, 7/16 Romanian cimbalom, a house version of a Macedonian sabre dance, Maramaros dances from Muzsikás’ Bartók Album, a Macedonian tune as a Swedish halling from Garmarna, a 1988 live track in Greek from the Mustaphas, and the word-winding perfect jewel that is the Klezmatics’ English-language refugee song An Undoing World.
      Put together by Eric Iverson and Omnium’s Drew Miller (whose band Boiled Lead winds things up with a set of Bulgarian dance tunes), using both new and already released material, it’s one of those rare compilations that’s ever-varying and ear-catching but somehow hangs together, flowing naturally as it unveils its fresh pleasures. (Even the most avid Balkanophile won’t have heard more than a handful of these tracks before, and none of them prompts the “Uhuh, that one again” response.)
      Oh sure, I could be finding praise for this because net profits go to Médecins Sans Frontières; it was inspired by the appalling Kosovo situation, and all tracks and various manufacturing services were donated. But trust me, I’m not; there’s not the slightest whiff of the worthy here, and even if it had been a straight commercial release it would still come as a shining beacon in today’s sea of samplers.


© 1999 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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