The Whole Music Experience

World Perunika Trio A Bright Star Has Risen Arc Music In the late 1980s, Bulgarian choir music reached international audiences when Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares and Trio Bulgarka enjoyed popularity among world music fans.   Trio Bulgarka appeared on Kate Bush’s Sensual World which introduced Bulgarian vocal music to pop and rock audiences.   Further more, Philip Koutev, an arranger and composer also enjoyed popularity while western ears were introduced to open-throat singing and folkloric music of Eastern Europe.   Closer to home, San Francisco-based Kitka also includes Bulgarian folk songs in its repertoire that also includes Balkan, Russian, Ukrainian, and Hungarian songs. Bright, young and beautiful, the women vocalists who comprise Perunika Trio sing polyphony complete with the exclamatory whoop.   Lead by Eugenia Georgieva, the women hail from Bulgaria and Serbia originally and now make their home in the UK where they have won the ...

Bratsch Urban Bratsch World Village I was in the mood for gypsy jazz just when the French group Bratsch’s new recording Urban Bratsch arrived in my mailbox.   A delicious mix of klezmer, gypsy jazz, German theater (Brecht/Weill), and Eastern European music, this quintet delivers a whopper of a recording. It is as eclectic as Lo-Jo, and as rousing as Les Yeux Noirs (also from France).   These guys show what passions are possible played on acoustic instruments (guitar, accordion, violin, double bass, and clarinet). The opener Sirba Din Joc De Constanca/Hora certainly starts off a rousing listening experience with its gypsy violin.   I expect to hear one of those wild and crazy Eastern European zithers conversing with the violin, but in all honesty, this music fills the space just fine.   Francois Castiello’s accordion resembles a harmonium on the ballad Scetate with Nano Peylet’s klezmer clarinet singing mournfully along with the raspy vocals...

Amira & Merima Kljuco Zumra World Village I’ve not heard much Bosnian music except for perhaps the Balkan repertoire covered by Greek vocalist-interpreter Savina Yannatou. Bosnian vocalist Amira (Medunjanin) and her musical partner, accordionist Merima Kljuco show us the lushness of two instruments combined and all the various harmonics and nuances coaxed from a human voice box and a squeezebox. The liner notes tell us that the songs performed by this duo have been passed down from one Bosnian generation to the next, but on Zumra have been transformed into more contemporary-sounding traditional fare in the skillful hands of these musicians. I’m not at liberty to make any comparisons since I’ve not heard the original songs. What I will say is that after several listens of this miraculous recording, my heart has risen and fallen along with Amira’s vocals and felt tension building and releasing along with Kljuco’s accordion. Both musicians have great command over thei...