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Written in fRoots issue 334, 2011
 

MARIUS PREDA’S UNKNOWN ALLSTARS
Budala Hop
Opa Cupa Music 002 (2010)

Young Romanian Roma cimbalist Marius Preda, a regular collaborator with Dutch band Flairck, put together a ten-piece band to play at the International Gipsy Festival in Tilburg, Netherlands in May 2010, where reviews and online videos indicate they were a big hit. A couple of months later they made this studio album.
     Its first eight pieces, composed or arranged by Preda, some with vocals from Romanian Roma Florin Mocanas, move from pacey scamper to the duduk and sax led surge of Gloomy Sunday. There’s singing violin from Cristian Tanasa, eloquent jazz trumpet from Bulgarian Raya Hadjieva, saxes, kaval, clarinet and trombone, often teaming up in sections for tight harmonising lines, driven by guitar, bass and percussion, with Preda’s skilful cimbalom generously not dominating but chording, quivering and skittering where it’s needed. The ninth item, designated a ‘bonus track’ but a track’s either on a CD or it isn’t, is a bass-sample powered remix of the earlier Michael Jackson Hora that I suppose might get it some Balkan-disco dance-floor action. All the best stuff precedes it though.


© 2011 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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