And now that I start back again listening some other kind of musics when seeking for novelty, at last dicovering your blog, well what are you talking us about? Well thanks so much, at least it gave me an occasion to post very early after the discovery Next time -very soon- I promiss I’m going to post about my favorite US bands, and like Antibalas from who you already talked they are not out of the spot of your web wonder!

I suspect a little french influence in your speech (Jean Nouvel - Delanoe), but I defenitely love the way the Nordic lifestyle has a crush on you (Erlend Oye totally killed me once too)

By the way Trentemoller´s track is for me the soundtrack of a lifetime!

Enjoy dude,

Thoughts from Barcelona, a city who also has to learn the bicycling way of living..

Cheers
Seb

PD: And If you wanna try some real Argentina Cumbia go for “Los Palmeras” “Koli Arce y el quinteto imperial” “Antonio Rios” or the real “cumbia villera” (slum’s cumbia), Pibes Chorros, Damas Gratis (or Pablo Lescano, the producer)…they are consider the real marginal music, and has been compared with the hip hop in his origins.
Also, from Córdoba theres a reggae/dub jam band called “The Soundclash Army”…they never rehearse…they just met the nights of the shows and play some jams for fun.

try to find some songs of Dick el Demasiado. He’s a sort of cult hero in Argentina as he makes quirky songs on bouncy cumbia rhythms that make people somehow go wild. He’s actually Dutch and still lives in Eindhoven, so it’s even funnier that his ‘relocated’ music is only well known over there and in no other country, not even here in Holland.

Kate, the term balkan being used for gypsy music or vice versa is indeed making false friends since both don’t always have to do with each other. Markovic does fit the balkan music coin since his style of music isn’t gypsy music but is mostly inspired by old army marching band. The again, Fanfare Ciocarlia don’t fit the balkan anorak, since they are Romanian and some members are Roma gypsies.
either way, both names are pinned on the eastern european styles as generalised form of music, which is misleading for listeners. I reckon the music press and promoters are to blame for this lazy and hyped use of this terminology.

While in the Rajasthani folk institute last week, I stumbled upon a very good book on Hungarian folk music and songs by Zoltan Kordaly (Folk music of Hungary) and I read some chapters of it, quite an eyeopener too!

In this, Kordaly speaks a lot about the influence (or defluence) of the Roma gypsies, as he claims (and proves) that Hungarian and Romanian Roma’s actually have always played old Hungarian folk tunes and reworked them into their own language and rhythms. All these songs have spread over Eastern Europe through the gypsies, so as well as changing the songs, they also promoted them wide and far on their nomadic goings, but just not in the original version. Remixers on the road? surely. So yeah, all gypsy music can be traced back to Hungarian folk, so most of the music traces that they left in the balkan can also be regarded as such.

well Matt, I reckon I can prepare a post about elaborating this further……

of course that’s a great idea. How could it not be?

Marc Schmidt

Kate- IMHO, the term “Balkan music” is much more general than “Gypsy music”. The word “gypsy” is avoided a lot these days for some good and some stupid reasons.. but anyway, “gypsy jazz” and other gypsy genres usually refer to music influenced by traditional Roma music. Balkan music may include elements from the music of nomadic Eastern European peoples, but there’s a lot more there as well.

Cheers
Matt