Tag Archives: Balkan music

Elina Duni’s Partir

Posted on 22nd April 2018 by Gary Whitehouse

“We’re all leaving. Bound to be torn away, one day or another, from what we love.” With those words Elina Duni welcomes her audience in to her latest project, a cycle of songs from around the world about love, loss … Continue reading →

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Eva Salina and Peter Stan’s Sudbina

Posted on 9th April 2018 by Gary Whitehouse

This review is different from nearly every one I’ve ever written, in that it draws more from the album’s publicity and background than my opinions about the recording itself. The publicity material is uncommonly well-written and presents quotes from the … Continue reading →

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Damir Imamovič’s Sevdah Takht’s Dvojka

Posted on 6th September 2017 by Gary Whitehouse

This album was actually released in 2016 but only recently came to my attention. My ear has wandered away from Balkan music for a while, and Damir Imamovič turns out to be a great attention-getter. Imamovič is the scion of … Continue reading →

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Amira Medunjanin’s Damar

Posted on 21st November 2016 by Gary Whitehouse

I haven’t listened to a lot of sevdah, but I am familiar with Mostar Sevdah Reunion, probably the best-known sevdah group outside of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Amira Medunjanin sang on their 2003 album A Secret Gate before going on to … Continue reading →

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Boiled in Lead’s 17 March 2001

Posted on 4th June 2016 by Jack Merry

Boiled in Lead are, without any doubt, one of the best live Celtic/punk/balkan fusion bands on the planet bar none. Confused yet? Well, let’s have Chuck Lipsig in his essential Boiled In Lead omnibus give a go at explaining them: ‘The problem … Continue reading →

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Boiled in Lead’s Silver 

Posted on 4th June 2016 by Robert M. Tilendis

Before commenting on Boiled in Lead’s Silver, CD, let me stress one point: “punk” is a general descriptive term denoting, most often, a subgenre. Thus we have celtopunk, Christian punk, glam punk, and any number of other punks in music. In … Continue reading →

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Boiled in Lead’s The First Decade of Recordings

Posted on 4th June 2016 by Diverse Voices

Chuck Lipsig penned this review. The problem when writing about Boiled in Lead is how to describe them. Rock and roll? Punk? Blues? Jazz? Traditional? Which tradition? They’ve done everything from Irish to Albanian to Vietnamese to American Traditional. Indeed, there … Continue reading →

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Various artists’ Hungarian Noir, A Tribute to the Gloomy Sunday

Posted on 24th May 2016 by Gary Whitehouse

If you’re familiar with the song “Gloomy Sunday” it’s probably from Billie Holiday’s version of it, which popularized it in the U.S. in 1941. The BBC banned that record from the airwaves because its mood was deemed too somber for … Continue reading →

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Boiled in Lead’s Songs from The Gypsy

Posted on 14th April 2016 by Robert M. Tilendis

Boiled in Lead‘s Songs from The Gypsy is a collision, of sorts. That’s a metaphor, of course, but then, if you can’t speak in metaphor, you can’t talk about music. First, the basics, for those who, like yours truly, are not familiar with … Continue reading →

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Timothy Rice’s May It Fill Your Soul: Experiencing Bulgarian Music

Posted on 17th January 2016 by Gary Whitehouse

Timothy Rice, folk-dancer turned ethnomusicologist, did field work in Bulgaria for his masters degree (1971) and PhD (1977) at the University of Washington. He later hosted gaida (bagpipe) player Kostadin Verimezov and his wife, singer Todora Verimezova, for a residency … Continue reading →

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