Shazalakazoo - Speaking Balkanian (CD) - OUT NOW!

Now you can listen and buy online the debut album from Shazalakazoo: "Speaking Balkanian"!


Shazalakazoo - Speaking Balkanian by shazalakazoo

And for those who can't afford to pay, we have a special bonus track for download:

Shazalakazoo - Southern Railroad by shazalakazoo


Opa!

Kottarashky - Opa hey! (CD) Out now!

Kottarashky is a 21st century digital master musician with his hands sunk deep in the past - vintage Balkan field recordings, classic jazz and blues, psychedelic sounds, club beats and extraordinary, archetypal Gypsy voices, guttural shouts and lyrical laments are all molded and thrown into new shapes. The songs of his debut album “Opa Hey!” sound like tales told by a people who have all the time in the world: time to contemplate, enjoy, engage and dream; to take pleasure in unexpected twists and turns; to be inspired by the details and vividness of marginal existence.

Kottarashky is an architect by vocation, which perhaps explains the palpable sense of place in his music. Summer trips to small villages and the marginal regions of Bulgaria were key source of inspiration for the album, and his music samples a broad palette of sources and influences - enigmatic field recordings by artists unknown alongside Boris Kovac, Les Yeux Noir, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Jony Iliev and compelling Hungarian singer Mitsou.

The resulting digital pick-and-mix hits you like a panoramic puzzle of sounds collected and put together from a night’s walk through the streets of Sofia.

It is an ethno-music born of a city lacking cultural identity that is torn between contemporary European globalism, Balkan provincialism and a living if largely forgotten folk tradition. It’s a music inspired by that environment but also in reaction to it, a journey down roads less travelled, through the Bulgarian backwoods and back via the laptop to the 21st century.

Titles

1. Chetiri / 2. Opa Hey / 3. Tempe / 4. Tebe / 5. Mandra / 6. Long Song / 7. Lele
8. Blatoto / 9. September / 10. Myanmar / 11. I Want You To Sleep / 12. Bell

All titles published by Asphalt Tango Records

Total playing time 46:05

Buy: http://www.asphalt-tango.de/records/kottarashky/artist.html

Mahala Rai Banda - Ghetto blasters (CD) - OUT NOW

New Mahala Rai Banda CD out now! ;)

In Romania, the most famous and the most gifted musicians live in two villages. In Clejani, just south-west of Bucharest, the violinists, cymbalists, double bass players and other accordion players notably formed the extraordinary Taraf de Haidouks. In Zece Prajini, north-east of the capital in Moldavia, you can find the greatest density of wind players per square meter, including the brass players of the famous Fanfare Ciocarlia. It is in these two villages, lost in the dust, the mud or the ice, according to the season, that you find the crème de la crème, the instrumentalists who are half-genius, half-rascal, capable of stirring up a wedding party with a single solo launched at supersonic speed.

Knowing this, how do you find THE great Gypsy group, a sort of Balkan equivalent of the Memphis Horns with the rhythm section from Muscle Shoals, these two being the gold standard of soul music, combining power and finesse, groove and virtuosity? It's easy, just bring together the musicians from Clejani and of Zece Prajini!

The story of Mahala Rai Banda begins at the end of the nineties with Aurel Ionita forming the group Rom Bengale in Bucharest. Their success had hardly begun - when this ensemble of young musicians was plagued and divided by addiction problems. Aurel then created the initial line-up of the Mahala Rai Banda - a name inspired by the Gypsy suburbs of the big Romanian cities - which released a CD on Crammed Discs in 2004.

Now the band is back with its mix of Romanian musical traditions, oriental pop, rumba Catalan, reggae and manele, the Roma pop with ambigious commercial success. Keeping the spirit of an orchestra playing exclusively live, Mahala Rai Banda, with the tremendous "Ghetto Blasters", has released a disc where the pure pleasure of playing and partying overflows. May your nights be long, very long indeed!

Musicians

Ionita Aurel - violin / vocals
Ionita Florinel - accordion
Cantea Georgel - tuba
Bosnea Aurel - bariton horn
Trifan Andrei - tenor horn
Zahanagiu Marian - trombone
Cantea Cristinel - trumpet
Oprica Viorel - trumpet
Mihai Cristinel - saxophone
Dinu Marian - drums
Mihai Enache - darabukka

Manole Nicusor - vocals
Florentina Sandu - vocals

Titles

1. Tu Romnie / 2. Nu Mai Beau / 3. Zabrakadabra / 4. Avante Me Fante
5. Zuki Zuki / 6. Balada / 7. Solo Para Ti / 8. Hora Din Mahala / 9. Ding Deng Dong / 10. Balkan Reggae / 11. Na Janes / 12. Kolo Baro / 13. Am Plecat De Jos

All titles published by Asphalt Tango Records except title 1 by Piranha Musik AG und title 3 by Dr. Sauter Musikverlag GmbH.

Total playing time 45:40

BUY: http://www.asphalt-tango.de/records/banda/artist.html