Eclectic Gypsy Jazz from Tarkany Muvek

Hungarian combo Tarkany Muvek put a deviously entertaining, traditionalist spin on what we in the cimbalom-deprived United States tend to lump together under the nebulous rubric of gypsy jazz. The group’s latest album Introducing Tarkany Muvek is out as a digital download from World Music Network and it’s tremendously enjoyable, as original as it is intelligent. Frontwoman Juliana Paar’s high soprano ranges from misty, to stark and haunted, to wounded and brittle, over the richly resonant cimbalom (Hungarian hammered dulcimer) of the group’s main composer, Bálint Tárkány Kovács along with multi-reedman Gergo Kovats (also of Koala Fusion and Oláh Dezso Septet), violist Endre Papp and bassist András Bognár. They have a sense of humor (the first song on the album is titled Bite It) and shift seamlessly between folk and jazz idioms. A bouncy Hungarian torch song becomes a jaunty jump blues; Kovats’ tenor sax ranges from Louis Jordan ebullience to Philip Glass hypnoticism, and Papp’s elegant orchestration gives the music a welcome heft and lushness.

That first track sure has some bite: a protege of the legendary Kalman Balogh, Kovacs prowls from apprehensive to triumphant and back, sometimes in a split second, then the song goes halfspeed with a misty tenor sax interlude before picking up again. They follow that with a pensive, starkly hypnotic ballad and then the ironically-charged Hush Peacock, which segues into a bouncy Hungarian torch song that morphs unexpectedly into a lickety-split jump blues. There’s a trancily rhythmic number built on a Steve Reich-esque circular riff, a rubato folk-rock ballad with flute aptly titled Autumn Sketch; a tongue-in-cheek bounce entitled So Much I Love, and a cleverly low-key, loungey take on the gypsy standard Csirrip that Paar sinks her fangs into just enough to keep the irony in the red.

They follow that with an instrumental that sends the sax soaring over a tense, mysterioso background that the cimbalom eventually joins to add an extra layer of suspense that Kovats eventually ends up shattering – it’s one of the album’s most enjoyable moments. After that, they take an absolutely charming stab at a tiptoeing retro Roaring 20s vibe that wouldn’t be out of place in the Lake Street Dive fakebook, then wind up the album with a number that begins on a minimalist, Satie-esque note, Kovats’ smoky sax adding a warm wee-hours edge before the whole band picks it up and sends it up flying. Lucky Hungarian fans can catch their next gig on September 7 at 9 PM at the Mustache Festival.

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The Rough Guide to Desert Blues – More Diverse Than You Might Imagine

Consider this the Nuggets of duskcore. The new Rough Guide to Desert Blues anthology is a vivid illustration of how much variety there is in desert blues, and also includes some excellent tracks by artists outside the circle of usual suspects. No desert blues collection would be complete without Tinariwen or Ali Farka Toure, and this one’s got both. And like all the Rough Guides, it comes with a bonus cd, in this case a whole album of Etran Finatawa which is worth the price of admission all by itself. But the real drawing card here is the more obscure tracks. The most psychedelic is by Tamikrest, layering eerie, atmospheric electric guitar washes against percussive fingerpicking. The most rock-oriented one is by Mauritanian singer Malouma, with Rhodes piano and incisive, distorted electric guitar accents that really catch fire on the turnaround. El Profeta, by Jalihena Natu has a roughhewn, demo feel, his rousing vocals rising over aggressively squiggly hammer-on guitar work. A pretty standard one-chord jam by Tartit morphs unexpectedly into a joyous, circular dance; Western Sahara’s Mariem Hassan belts her song Tefla Madlouma with drama and passion over a repetitive flute-and-guitar riff.

Tinariwen is represented by Tenhert, a slinky, unusually energized proto-boogie with breathless Tamashek lyrics; by contrast, Ali Farka Toure’s Mali Dje is understated even by his standards, patiently staking out terrain with a series of terse, watery guitar motifs. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba contribute a crescendoing Ali Farka Toure-style cut from his excellent new album I Speak Fula. And Tinariwen spinoff Terakaft gets a track that’s almost funk rock with richly cross-shaded guitars, one running through a wah pedal. There are also a couple of ringers here, a simple, repetitive instrumental by Niger’s ngurumi lute virtuoso Mamane Barka and a duskcore-tinged pop song by Amadou and Mariam with soaring, mariachiesque trumpet.

Likewise, the Etran Finatawa cd spans the range of duskcore: the spacious, skeletal opening track; a couple of hypnotic riff-driven numbers that crescendo surprisingly with bracing electric guitar solos; the majestic reverb-guitar anthem Iledeman; the spiky, circular Aliss and Anadjibo, and the playful Ronde with its tricky false endings. It’s out now on World Music Network.

CD Review: Paban Das Baul – Music of the Honey Gatherers

South Indian singer Paban Das Baul has collaborated extensively with a number of western musicians and disco producers. This new album is a return to his roots, a collection of both original and centuries-old Baul music, a tradition he was initiated into at age fourteen. The Bauls are wandering minstrels with a mystical streak. Traveling the Ganges plains, they perform a spiritual purification ritual known as “honey gathering:” they play, the villagers’ spirits are raised, the musicians are given rice and beans. “Baul” is Bengali for “crazy” or “possessed,” but from the music, it’s clear that if there any spirits at work here, they are gentle and benign ones. As befits a tribe given to heavy ganja smoking, these songs go on for minutes on end. Western songwriters from Nick Drake to Devendra Banhart have drawn on elements of this stuff – you could say that it’s the original freak-folk. Paban Das Baul sings with a kindly, reflective delivery, more introspective than ecstatic, which makes sense in that he’s often encouraging the listener to look within.

The songs share a languid, swaying rhythm, the melody carried by the vocals, dotara (a five-string lute) and sometimes jews harp; often the lute doubles the vocal line. The lute playing is repetitive and ruminative with subtle changes, occasionally picking up with an incisive phrase: late 60s Jerry Garcia in paticularly pensive mode comes to mind. When the melody goes into the upper registers, the instrument resembles a mandolin. There are subtle modal shifts, but no chord changes per se. The percussion rattles along, sometimes minimalistically, once in awhile insistent. The music doesn’t seem to make any attempt to mirror the lyrics, in the case of either sadness (a breakup song), weariness (a traveler’s tale) or joy (a tribute to wanderlust and all its metaphorical implications). It’s pretty much what you would expect in late summer on the outskirts of Calcutta, heavy-lidded and absolutely hypnotic. It’s out now from World Music Network.