With music by Čači Vorba (Poland), Kroke (Poland), Geoff Berner (Canada).
Čači Vorba.
The album ‘Šatrika’ demonstrates the quality of these prominent musicians in Gipsy and Balkan music. The group has a virtuoso mixture of ethnic music; Roma swing, Romanian blues, and Balkan pop with a Mediterranean timbre. They use for the performance traditional instruments, without electronic support. The singer Maria Natanson has a pleasant voice and sings in many languages with a natural ease. It is all unique because of the varied arrangements.
Cd. ‘Šatrika’ Čači Vorba. Label: Oriënte Musik (2015), code: RIENCD87. Video
Kroke is the Yiddish word for Cracow – a city in Poland, which rediscovers itself as a metropolis of East-European Jewish culture. The Yiddish folklore tradition is the musical identity of the trio, but they also add jazz and classical elements. Kroke has worked with artists like Nigel Kennedy and Peter Gabriel, and received the ‘Prize of the German Record Critics’.
They are excellent instrumentalists who surprise the listener with their passion and playfulness.
Cd. ‘Ten’ Kroke. Label: Oriënte Muzik (2015), code: RIENCD90. Video
Geoff Berner is singer-songwriter, accordionist and writer. His music combines Klezmer (for the outsiders, the traditional music of East-European Jews), punk, political satire and Balkan dance rhythms. He writes sharp expressive songs at which you want to cry, laugh or both at the same time. ‘We are going to Bremen to be musicians’ is his first original album in four years. Geoff claims that the album is meant as “a powerful medicine to cheer you up” for which you do not have to switch off your brain.
Cd. ‘We are going to Bremen to be musicians‘ Geoff Berner. Label: Oriënte Musik (2015), code: RIENCD89. Video