Besh o droM tour Australia
by ‘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.’
Barcza plays saxophone, flute and other instruments, and in the years before the band, he played in a trio with brother in law Ádám Pettik, a percussionist. When Barcza moved from Israel back to Hungary, together they formed Besh o droM. While the line-up has changed over time, the core group has remained the same. Currently the band includes nine members who play a mix of folk and contemporary instruments including guitar, dulcimer, clarinet, darbuka, bass and accordion.
Besh o droM draw inspiration from Transylvanian, Jewish, Afghan, Egyptian, Lebanese, Armenian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Macedonian and Greek musical traditions. According to Barcza, ‘One of us brings in a melody and it might come from a traditional song, and the other band members ask not to hear the original recording, so as to not contaminate the creative process.’
Forming a song then involves bringing together all the different influences and elements. ‘We might mix a Jewish melody with a Hungarian song. Or a Macedonian song with a Hungarian rhythm. It’s like playing with blocks of Lego.’
The energy of their live shows is world-renowned, helped along by some YouTube footage that features instruments faultlessly played at frenetic, frenzied speeds. ‘Through the music we give energy to the audience, who through their appreciation and dancing give it back, which further energises us and we play it even better and faster.’ He laughs. ‘Always faster!’
Besh o droM are headlining Karavan, the inaugural Melbourne International Gypsy Music Festival on Saturday, February 27. The line-up is completed by gypsy and folk bands from around Melbourne: Unified Gecko, Woohoo Revue, VulgarGrad, Barons of Tang, Vardos, Rapskallion and Systa bb. Following that show, Besh o droM play the Palais Theatre in St Kilda on Sunday, February 28. The band will also be appearing at Australia’s biggest world music festival WOMADelaide, with 55 other bands from 27 countries, from March 5 to 8 in Adelaide.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Tagged: gypsy-fusion, Hungarian music, world music
RELATED
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
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
The Tinariwen album, Aman Iman, was a star among the many great releases of 2007, surprisingly so given the underexposure of world music in your average annual list of must-haves (even emo-warriors Pitchfork gave it a big thumbs-up). Their story is as intriguing as the music: hailing from the Tuareg tribe in Mali, they formed in 1982 in the rebel camps of Colonel Gaddafi. The lyrics, sung in French and Tamashek, are intensely political, focused largely on the struggle by Malians for independence from their government. The music is very spatial and, like Ali Farke-Toure or Amadou & Mariam, really evokes the size and ambiance of the African Savannah. Don’t be put off by the genre: it’s a very accessible sound, and the loosely-delivered vocals are simply mesmerising.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Also by XAVIER TOBY
Australian movie A Few Best Men
With all the gross out jokes and silliness of the common comedy romp, you’d think making them would be easy. Well, it’s not. It’s actually really difficult. Writing a joke is one of the hardest tasks anyone can undertake. Read more
Melancholia: a film by Lars von Trier
I wish there were a lot more of the types of films made by Lars von Trier. Each is very different but still distinctly von Trier, and each is superb. Melancholia is the follow up to the wonderfully confronting Antichrist. This is all about the end of the world, and told with an honesty and pacing that is probably much closer to the actual end of the world than all the Hollywood crap would have you believe. Read more
We Need To Talk About Kevin: based on Lionel Shriver’s novel
A delightful uncomfortable film, told from the point of view of a broken woman. Kevin’s just not right, and that’s obvious from the outset as mother Eva battles to bring him up in a world where the onus is put squarely back on the mother. The intensity is poured on throughout, as tragedy seems imminent. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (0)
No comments yet.
HAVE YOUR SAY
This is a first. We humans created a space-traveling vessel that just orbited Mercury and was kind enough to take a photo to send back to its creators. The earth and moon are the obvious bright spots in the lower left quadrant.
The idea behind Blippy is to use the public blackboard that is the burgeoning social media environment to monitor what your friends, and their friends, are spending their hard-earned money on. The Twitter-based platform encourages its members to upload their credit card details so that their online purchases are displayed in real time for all the world — or at least a voyeuristic few — to see.
If animated wall drawings of severed heads and insect men ejecting their brains from their craniums is what people produce when they have too much time on their hands, then we should do their laundry for them and cook them dinner so they’ll have even more time on their hands.
Jean-Julien Pous’ Seeking You is an animated love letter to the city of Hong Kong. It presses all the same buttons as Blade Runner and In the Mood for Love, with a touch of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s gothic style, and though it’s really amazing eye candy, it also smacks of creepy, orientalist expat. Here, an entire Asian city is exoticized, fetishized, and finally anthropomorphized in a rather unsubtle way. Why are so many creepy old European dudes so lecherous when it comes to Asia?
Anyone interested in the importance of limitations on creativity should check out the new publication Vormator: The Elements of Design. Begun two years ago, it challenges artists to create a visual by using a very limited palette of shapes and possibilities. Read more
Grinning Cat is a beautiful electronic album from prodigious Japanese producer, Susumu Yokota. It borrows liberally from the melodic melancholy of classical music and features subtle drum loops throughout. We interviewed him about the artwork that he creates for each release. Read more
Erin Shaw creates outrageously creative headdresses out of merino wool, birch wood, glass eyes, paint, and felt. So now you can look like you have a dead animal sitting on your head, when you really don’t. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
A little infectious lollipop rock anyone? Feel free to embarrass yourself singing along at the stoplight. If the other drivers give you that look, roll down the windows and spread the love.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Nerd-attack! Man, this TARDIS zipper robe is so much cooler than any Star Wars crap people are hawking this days. This is for the true gangsta nerd.
Francoise Nielly’s Yellow series
Parisian visual artist Francoise Nielly brings technicolour to the forefront in her latest series, Yellow. Featuring thick impasto palette knife strokes and trippy neon hues, Nielly captures the vulnerable expressions of her muses to a tee. Read more
Honest Food Preparation Instructions
Yes, we’ve all been there: the chinese food from last week that still looks edible amongst the bare surrounds of an empty fridge. But really, we shouldn’t. Just let it be. Or College Humor will expose you! Read more
Michelle Blade’s psychedelic artwork
Michelle Blade’s washed out paintings are deceptively simple, her washy acrylics creating psychedelic textures and conjuring ghostly figures from the past. Read more
The Arquebus Clothing Brand, based in Brooklyn, is dedicated to designs that are self-expressive and meaningful through imagery or typography. They are bold, positive, inspirational, motivational, witty, philosophical and very wearable. We love these pieces inspired by nature, history, and everyday living. Some favorites can be found in the Lost At E Minor store.
Read more
If you have a Twitter feed that focuses on cool pop cultural things and you’d like to swap Tweets with Lost At E Minor and other like-minded Twitterers, drop us a note (with Tweet Swap in the title). We have a system in place and we’d like to have you in on it! [illustration by Brad Fitzpatrick]
FOLLOW US
DISCOVER MORE
SO...
SEARCH: Can't find what you're looking for? Do a search..
IS IT GOOD FOR YOU TOO?
We hope you're enjoying your time on Lost At E Minor, but it's not over yet. Got something to share? Tell us about it and we'll look to publish it. If you want to have your work featured on the site, we'd love to hear from you. Pssst, we also have an online store stocking some of the goodies we feature on the site.
If you're a media agency and want to use this platform to connect with our readership, then drop us a line and tell us about it. Oh yeah, and we do digital consulting for cool brands that want to reach the sort of demographic that visits this site.
