- Cloud Valley Music website -
- Andrew Cronshaw website -
- Andrew Cronshaw MySpace -

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -

Written in fRoots issue 338/339, 2011


BESH O DROM
Kertünk Alatt – Down The Garden
NarRator Records NRR107 (2011)

The fifth album from this Hungarian pan-Balkan band, featured in fR 328 after their most recent UK trip in May 2010, is, like their live shows, a high-energy tour de force gathering raw material from across the Balkans and imparting to it the band’s own distinctive dance-impelling spin without a slack moment.
     Three members of the octet missing from or depped-for on the British gigs – percussionist-singer frontman Ádám Pettik, cimbalist József Csurkulya and guitarist Attila Sidoo – are all here, as is new female vocalist Lili Kaszai, who rather than taking solos is heard largely in tandem with Pettik and group vocals.
     Jubilantly energised by the rhythms and shapes of its roots, rather than generic brutal Balkan-beat-banging this is real playing and singing, taking full advantage of technology as naturally and effectively as it does the sounds of saxes, kaval, shepherd’s flute, accordion, cimbalom, bass and drums. No space-filling keyboards; the electronic action is mainly in wind-player Gergely Barcsa’s domain. His Akai EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), held like a sax but with the full range of synthesised and sampled sound possibilities, in the wrong hands could be a curse, but he makes it a driving force, squeeing and plunging far above and below the range of his sax to make a whole extra dimension of bubble and whizz that further piles on the excitement.
     More UK shows are planned for October.

www.beshodrom.com

© 2011 Andrew Cronshaw
 

You're welcome to quote from reviews on this site, but please credit the writer and fRoots.

Links:
fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

It's not practical to give, and keep up to date, current contact details and sales sources for all the artists and labels in these reviews, but try Googling for them, and where possible buy direct from the artists.
CDRoots.com in the USA, run by Cliff Furnald, is a reliable and independent online retail source, with reviews, of many of the CDs in these reviews; it's connected to his excellent online magazine Rootsworld.com 

For more reviews click on the regions below

NORDIC        BALTIC        IBERIA (& islands)   

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, & CAUCASUS   

OTHER EUROPEAN        AMERICAS        OTHER, AND WORLD IN GENERAL

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -