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Written in fRoots issue 190, 1999

ORKIESTRA P.W. SW. MIKOLAJA - THE SAINT NICHOLAS ORCHESTRA
Kraina Bojnów - The Land of Boyns
Orange World OWCD 002 (1998)

In which the exuberant, melodic soul of south-east Polish traditional music slaps backs, entices grannies and grandchildren onto the dancefloor and gets the whole room stamping and singing that it’s alive, all with the knowing glint of a good deal of traditional skill and witty inventiveness.
      A lot of well made, well played albums hit the reviewing mat, but once in a while one like this comes along with that special added ingredient - gusto. Orkiestra p.w. sw. Mikolaja, The Saint Nicholas Orchestra, is based in Lublin at Chatka Zaka, Marie Curie-Sklodowska University’s Academic Centre of Culture, and this is its second album. The material is mostly Lemkish and Slovak, largely from the Bieszczady and Beskid Niski mountains in the eastern Polish Carpathians, whose vibrant music, a mixture of Lemko, Slovak, Boyko, Jewish and Gypsy cultures, disappeared after the Second World War when the inhabitants were deported by the communist authorities to other parts of Poland and the Ukraine. The thirteen singers and musicians in the band for this album have done a lot of research, but there’s nothing dry and academic here, and having absorbed the lively spirit of the music they hit its love songs, wedding party songs, midsummer songs and more with the aforementioned gusto, mixed voices and a whole bunch of traditional instruments.
      What comes across is something that the Pogues reminded us of (though there’s much more skill in the playing here than in most Poguery, and less relation to pop music) - this music is fun, these are songs we like, let’s go for it! Real folk revival.


© 1999 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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