Balkan Beat Box

Besh o droM tour Australia

‘Most bands that play traditional music, do it in a traditional way. What’s interesting for us it to keep it fresh and make it a living tradition,’ said Gergely Barcza of Hungarian gypsy-fusion band Besh o droM. Formed in Budapest in 1999, the name translates as ‘ride the road’, which they’ve done with performances at festivals all over Europe, Asia and soon for the first time, in Australia. ‘When we started, I never thought the music would travel so far, and take us all to so many different places.’ Read more

Interview with Eugene Hutz, Gogol Bordello

Gogol Bordello’s frontman, Eugene Hutz, was born in Kiev to a Romany family which fled their home following the Chernobyl disaster when he was a teenager. He spent years travelling through Eastern European refugee camps before arriving in Vermont, in the north-east American region of New England, as a political refugee. He eventually established himself in New York as a musician and artist, and became the resident DJ at the Bulgarian Bar, Mehanata, which, thanks to Eugene’s ‘kidnapping’ of touring Romany and Gypsy bands and artists to perform there after their official seated concert hall shows, helped turn it into the ‘CBGBs of Gypsy Punk. Gogol Bordello formed after its original members met at a Russian wedding in Vermont, and soon snow-balled into a fully-fledged immigrant orchestra. Debut shows at famous New York venues, including the Mercury Lounge and the Bowery Ballroom, saw them banned for performances that were ‘too over the top’. Read more

Amadou & Mariam

The first album released by the Malian duo Amadou & Mariam, Dimanche a Bamako, bordered on exceptional, if not for its songwriting then for its sheer diversity. You’d be forgiven for approaching cautiously an album that draws its influences from Syria, Cuba, Egypt, India, and Colombia, as well as its own country – much like a restaurant that offers every cuisine on the planet: choose one and do it well, you’d argue. But the album is fantastic: so full of life, so catchy and so accessible. Read more

Maths explains the origin of superhero characters

I love the colours and simple reasoning in this clever series by Scottish illustrator Matt Cowen, which uses basic maths equations to explain how certain pop culture icons came to be. Read more

Star Wars Uncut: a fully crowdsourced version of Episode IV

The project of creative technologist, Casey Pugh, this full length version of the George Lucas masterpiece was created from multiple 15 second segments recreated from the original movie and submitted by thousands of Star Wars fans, which were then spliced together by editor Aaron Valdez to form the final product. Genius, as both a commentary on contemporary pop culture trends (there are references to LEGO, stop motion, memes and the like) and on the power of tapping your audience for quality material.

Filmmaker creates LEGO stop motion to propose to girlfriend

Now, this is one for the ages: back in 2010, Atlanta film-maker Walter Thompson created a jaw-dropping LEGO stop motion to propose to Nealey Dozier, his girlfriend of four years. The video took 22 hours of shooting and some 2,600 pictures to splice together, a small sacrifice to pay for years of happiness together. Right? Right! Oh, and she said yes. Bonus.