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Balkan Beat Box
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Balkan Beat Box Album Review:
shake hard, beat hard at 2006-03-31
This is an incredibly creative album, with inspired beats and mixes and a wonderful sense of play. World music has been going in a direction American popular music seems to be redacting from: letting music of different cultures and styles meld together and make whole new sounds. Our investment-minded record industry may now officially hang its suited head in shame, because it will never reach what Balkan Beat Box does within a few seconds with its present paradigm.
Balkan Beat Box Album Review:
Great with really strong Balkans coffee!!! at 2006-03-05
Many influences here... hip hop, Balkan, Israel, Middle East etc... Strange, but I heard this first at Sounds Familiar Store In Columbia, SC after returning from my 2nd yr in Iraq.... I bought their demo copy....I think the sax was what did it for me.... its good and unusual music... and to think I was looking for used Kind Crimson CDs at the time... Unlike much world music, its got enough beat to entrance dance fans and college kids wanting something novel. Im just a dumb GI, but I did notice that so much of the music sounds like what I heard at gatherings in Tikrit... so much overlap...makes you wonder why we all fight...I recommend this to any collection. Its unique...Oh yea...the coffee part...Balkan Coffee (We cook the coffee now...would you like some?) is excellent...served from a Ibrik in little cups....yum...
Balkan Beat Box Album Review:
World music at its finest. at 2006-03-03
The music found on the Balkan Beat Box CD is undescribable, somewhere between Klezmic and Hip-Hop. Using strong, solid beats and wailing saxes and trumpets, Balkan Beat Box is definately a treat for the ears. I would recomend this CD to anyone interested in World music or anyone wanting to expand their music collection. I have never heard anything as fun and undescribeable as BBB.
Balkan Beat Box Album Review:
In a Box at 2006-03-25
Not every album kicks off with a rooster crowing. But then, not every band is brave enough for some quirky folk/hip-hop as their main sound.Much like their sister band Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box creates a funky mishmash of cultural influences. But their music ends up sounding like a gypsy electronica musician who just got back from a Middle-Eastern tour. Yup, its really as wild as it sounds.It kicks off with the most infectious song on the album, Cha Cha, which commands you dance! before the beat kicks in -- deliciously funky and danceable. Its followed by the glorious Bulgarian Chicks, which has Vlada Tomova and Kristin Espeland singing merrily over trumpets and dancey beats.Then they take a detour out of folkland, with dark hip-hop, Middle Eastern wails, sultry European saxophones, and delightfully raucous blasts of Eastern-European rocknroll, with chants interspersing blasts of grimy guitar. It ends on a surprisingly low-key note, with the hypnotic beats of La Bush Resistance, with Tomer Yosef and Amir Shahasar chanting over it all.If you had to describe Balkan Beat Box, then it would probably be Middle-Eastern/Jewish/gypsy beatbox/rock/electrofolk. If theres a name for fusion music like that, Id love to hear of it, because it would probably be as entertainingly colourful as the music itself.Balkan Beat Boxs strongest point is its instrumentation -- weve got the usual instruments, but theyre almost smothered in a thick layer of woodwinds, trombones, trumpets, sax and electronic programming here and there. And the musical styles are flexible -- weve got the jagged hip-hop right next to slithering Mid-East beats and bouncy Eastern European stuff.The vocals per se arent really provided by the official band, but by a long list of vocalists who sort of chip in on one song each. This can be a little confusing at times, especially since none of them really sound like each other, but it does add to the raucously unexpected sound of the album.If anybody is completely sick of prepackaged, flavourless pop music, then they should check out Balkan Beat Box. Colourful, energetic and thoroughly entertaining.
Balkan Beat Box Album Review:
Bulgarian chicks really knock me out at 2006-02-10
It is rare to find a group that is willing to share so much of their music and videos over the Internet. Their raucous mix of World music is great fun and their concerts appear to be a riot! It is easy to see why they have struck a nerve. Although you can hear all their music at their website, and even download their videos, you should buy this CD to support this group that will have you dancing in the streets.
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