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Written in fRoots issue 229, 2002

VARIOUS
Bareh Droma – Traditional Music Of The Russian Roma
Manas MR-CD7013 (2001)

Russian Roma sing and play; not the café-style fiddle pyrotechnics of Loyko and the Russian Gypsy Soul album, but music closer to that of Vera Bila and other Rom singers from northern central Europe, and of at least equal (musical) stature.
      The material here consists of domestic “at-the table” songs, slow “fate” and fast dance and wedding-celebration songs from magnificent, passionate singers, particularly Diana Savelieva, and guitarist-singers including her father Alexander Saveliev, Alexander Kolpakov and Artur Buziliev, with virtuoso almost flamenco-like 7-string guitar or chugging, surging, ripple-noting button accordion.
      The useful booklet notes, in Russian and English, by dancer and researcher Marianna Smirnova-Seslavinskaya, the project’s creator, give the backgrounds of the performers and explain the different styles and origins of a homeland of Gypsy music that until now has been little known in the West.
      Prominent on the back of the CD is an unusual credit: “This album was recorded with the blessing of the Archpriest Father Vadim Grushko”. Who, one assumes, knows good music when he hears it.



© 2002 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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