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Written in fRoots issue 241, 2003

BORIS KOVAČ & LADAABA ORCHEST
Ballads At The End Of Time
Piranha CD-PIR1787 (2003)

The kind of albums I really like aren’t the ones that say “this is what we can do”, but those that take me somewhere. This is one of those.
      Kovač and La Danza Apocalypsa Balcanica’s previous album, The Last Balkan Tango, was “an invitation to dance on the extreme edge of that abyss known as Yugoslavia”. Ballads At The End Of Time, designated LaDaABa Part Two, takes us back to that sadly beautiful, crumbling Central European dance-hall, a place of purple and gold and faded velvet, an intense grasping for love and humour before facing the shouting in the grey streets outside.
      Kovač’s sweet saxes soar with keening violin, clarinets and lyrical surging accordion over the slow chug of guitars, throb of double bass and shuffling of drums in gorgeous tunes, most of them his own – broken waltzes, an ironic cha-cha, a yearning, squealing traditional doina over tense strings and the baying of Coyote the dog, then the musicians burst into rough song. And At The End Of Time, “on a dancing terrace by the sea… dancers are no more. Brother musicians, let us finally play for our own pleasure, we have no longer any use for tips anyway…”


© 2003 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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