Fanfare Ciocarlia - Gili Garabdi
Reviewed by Sadie O., 9/30/05
Romanian Gypsy brass band, upbeat, joyous, skilled. Music for drinking and dancing all night to (you won’t fall asleep to it, that’s for sure! Don’t try to segue this with anything quiet – it’s totally wild and crazy and fun. Wow! I LOVE THIS!!!
No FCC (maybe in Romany – who knows.) Every song is excellent, I love 1, 4, 7, 11, 13 and 16 the best. It’s all just insane! Play!
1. ***Exuberant and delightfully syncopated cover – this just couldn’t be more fun! Punctuated by grunts, breaks into a rather exotic slower bit midway, then back to 007…
2. **upbeat and raucous, male vocals with a distinct middle eastern flavor
3. *possibly even FASTER than the last, rather like an absurdly speeded up march, unbelievably virtuoso solo trumpet. Switches to a jazzy ooom-pah bounce almost midway through.
4. ***Hey, that’s the Duke Ellington “Caravan”! With an almost Latin beat behind the floating melody.. And here’s where it really starts to sound like a New Orleans wake – great swingy jazz!
5. **a slow song – a tango, I think. Fun vocals, kinda like your drunk Italian uncle. Anyone can be sexy, with this and enough drink!
6. punctuated and jerky, fast bits, milliseconds of quiet… this’ll appeal to the “glitch” crowd if anything does… (oh, I think we’ve settled on a solid fast beat almost 2 minutes in, never mind!)
7. ***fast, kinda Latin sounding and kinda Balkan sounding, but all bouncy. Vocals like Satchmo in a particularly goofy mood.
8. fast start, dramatic slow emotional vocals and sax thereafter – until 3 minutes when the ooom-pah starts and gets faster and faster til end when we all fall down dead drunk
9. **fast fast fast, yikes! Nice vocals and sax solo, but it takes a lot of energy just to listen to this. Would go great with thrash metal!
10. *Oooh, very noir solo trumpet intro – then the obligatory fast fast fast polka insanity, but the trumpet continues to float over all.
11. ***fast, but not QUITE as fast, beat like a horse cantering, great melody, familiar in places, licorice stick like Benny Goodman’s happiest dreams…
12. 19 seconds of breather. Whew!
13. ***OK, we’re back to a gallop now. Same guest singer as on track 5, but now sounding VERY flamenco. Ole! Pour me another!
14. *fast fast fast with a straightforward beat but rather Latin sounding tune. Maybe we’ll someday discover that when we talk about Latin music, we need to say “Romanian Gypsy-sounding”…
15. **wacky trombone intro, fun and bouncy (what passes for “mid tempo” with these guys – ha!) kinda sounds like a vaudeville backup band for a belly dance stripper
16. ***“radio version” of track 2, which for once doesn’t mean it’s been cleaned up, but rather that female vocals and a few other things have been added to production – amazingly, it’s really good!

Dude, I am totally tired but happy after listening to this all the way through. Them Romanian Gypsies got stamina, I’m telling ya!