Slavic Soul Party – Teknochek Collision
Reviewed by Sadie O, 5/20/07
Basically Balkan brass band, but with a ton of other stuff thrown in. Hard to describe, really – most of it is defiantly acoustic, but with plenty of energy and volume. The second half of track 11 (which I WISH they hadn’t cobbled together with 2 songs) is full of electronic effects, though. There is a clear desire to be true to the roots on one hand, but on the other hand it’s a mashup of everything you can get your hands on in NY, which is a lot…
A couple of bleeped FCCs in the middle of 11.
5 and 11 (esp. the first half) KILL.
1. Intro – audience sounds, band warming up, gruff voice introducing band.
2. **big fat Balkan brass band, cool syncopated rhythm. Starts very sparse and builds.
3. ***bluesy and swingy, slightly downtempo march, lots of modulations and elements.
4. ****hyperactive oom-pah, female vocals – really gorgeous. Ends 20 secs or so early, then silly talking about song.
5. *****tuba blats (ya gotta love em!), then downtempo sickeningly cool groove, a bit of swing, who knows what. Who cares? What a great noise!
6. **rather uptempo oom-pah with manic horns. I see this as one of those dances where everyone links arms and dances faster and faster until they fall down in a drunken stupor.
7. **hard to describe, but it’s got a sort of running horn line and lots of accordion, and what sounds like a flugelhorn…
8. ***long accordion intro lots of astounding runs and flourishes but no beat. Female vocals again - she’s fabulous… Downtempo march beat comes in halfway through the song. Ends 24 seconds short, with a bit of old lady reminiscing.
9. ***very slow and mournful sounding horn intro, but the beat comes in 30 seconds along and is very funky midtempo. Banish care! Party! Opa!
10. **absolutely manic oom-pah, but with floaty bits… ends a few seconds shy with weird bit of kids, probably old TV ad.
11. *****oh lord, this is groovy! Downtempo, VERY funky, a bit of New Orleans in the mix. This shit’s too good to be legal! Warning – it’s not all one track. Ends 5 minutes early (!) with a bit of lecturing by nicely accented man. Pretty funny stuff, with a couple naughty words bleeped out. 4 minutes before end, a midtempo funky beat starts, with electronic effects. It’s very swingy and cool, almost as good as the first part of the track, also completely MAD.
12. “trumpets kicks ass” – that’s all.