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Written in fRoots issue 281, 2006
 

EARTH WHEEL SKY BAND
Rroma Art III - Gypsy Tango
X-Produkció XP 026 (2006)

At a time when it’s considerably fashionable to associate with and borrow from East European Roma music, here’s a very fine band of the real thing, and it’s doing it all for itself. Led by guitarist, singer and fiddler Vince Olah, Earth Wheel Sky Band has released two fine albums, Rroma Art I and Rroma Art II, of music from their region of Vojvodina around the city of Novi Sad in northern Serbia, where there is a strong influence of Hungarian music. This time, just as others are digging into the Roma repertoire, in true Roma style the band is reaching out to see what it can make of other traditions.
      The instrumentation of violins, clarinet or sax, trumpet, cimbalom, bass and percussion, gives them plenty of flexibility of sound to do just that. They move through flavours of tango, rumba, Carmen, flamenco, Middle Eastern, sevdalinka, Serbian brass, Hungarian fiddle and cimbalom zip and more, all with plenty of light and shade and variation of tempo and the band’s characteristic and very appealing subtle, husky, velvety, suppressed, knowing feel, far more satisfying than the crowd-stirring thumpy-shoutiness of some lesser bands or pedestrian tarting-up with decks and beats.
      Available in the UK from www.passiondiscs.co.uk


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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