| CD REVIEW Antwerp Gipsy-Ska Orkestra |
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Band : Antwerp Gipsy-Ska Orkestra The name of this band immediately belies what the band is about! They're from Antwerp (Belgium), of course, and their music is an exhilarating mixture of Roma music with Ska, played by no less than 6 band members. It all started some 7 years ago (early 2004) with longtime friends Gregor Engelen (vocals/ trumpet) and Mukti Gabriels (guitar/ backing vocals), who'd been playing in Punk bands since their puberty. Building up an exiting live reputation, the band was eventually invited to play at Melkwegin Amsterdam (with Balkan Beat Box) and at the prestigious Eurosonicfestival a couple of months later. Numerous festival appearances and headliner shows have since followed both in Holland and Belgium. The band's 2007 debut album Tuttilegal was somewhat of a weird affair, the band letting their label Evil Penguin Records, whom had never seen the band (current line-up also including the band's token Roma, Sukamet “Suki” Latifi on keyboards, Filip Vandebril on bass, Nathan Daems on diverse saxes & backing vocals, and Roel Poriau on drums and samples) perform, take over all major decisions...the most important being to have the band record their own versions of music from Goran Bregovic movies and old Gypsy traditionals. Pressed for time to release an album as soon as possible, it was recorded live in the studio...and the end result was somewhat disappointing. Anyway, as time went on the band came to the decision to take things in their own hands next time around, at any rate, to go for completely original tracks! And so they did, getting a nice deal with Excelsior Records in the process! With all members active in different types of bands (Mukti is also a member of Belgian Asociality; Filip plays bass in different bands including Lais, Andy And The Androids, and more, etc, etc... - for more info check the band's MySpace page), the band succeeds in letting different Roma influences some through in their music, also using different languages (Roma, French, Italian, even Russian...but for the most part mixed with English to keep a certain recognition factor – big exception is the track “Te Laat”, done completely in Antwerp dialect) to convey their lessons of life. The horn blowers really have the most difficult job in the whole, I guess, with the different styles that have to be played. But when push comes to shove, this is a Fun Band! Even “Te Laat”, which is about a guy having been ditched by his girlfriend, has a funny touch to it (the guy on the one side pleading for her to come back, then simply behaving most explicitly as a jerk). Tempo on most of the songs is typically high, as per usual with good and uplifting Ska (“Te Laat” again being the exception to the rule – in fact it could be seen as the album's token “ballad”). Explanations about how the band sounds being totally inadequate, one does better to check out the songs posted at the band's facebook and MySpace pages. I'm sure you'll soon be infected by this band's exuberance and jolly nature! Real great fun, these guys, and that's why the album gets such good rating! 90/100 Tony. |