$16.99 CD

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Mehanata: New York Gypsymania
(Bulgarian Cultural Center)

"Doli Goca" Zagnut Cirkus

"Agada" Guignol

There is something swelling in New York's seedy underbelly that's soon going to surge and saturate all five boroughs in a gloriously glutinous vodka mess. It's the lust-for-life musical chaos that is red-hot-rampageous down at that local Bulgarian Bar.... what? Cabaret punk, bushy brass bands, heaving accordions, wylin' flamenco-freak-outs, boozin' Balkan dancehall and blast-beat darabuka break-jams: the authentic sounds of a post-Berlin-wall-culture-fuck-clash Euro-phenomena channeled into everyday New York, posited healthily alongside reggaeton and any other valid newfangled nexus that serves as movement, progressive voice, and diversity. The fast-forward multifarious collective from the 'Eastern Bloc' and beyond, spearheaded by Joro-Boro and Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello, pluralistically exhale out of a trans-cultural osmosis of East meets West, romantically fusing the abundant expressions of a relevant past into a shifting matrix of the now-sound of today's wayward cultural bents. That is, an unorthodox real-deal identity stamp to destroy and forge through all barriers that are politikal, social, and musical. This is some serious guerilla muzik, possessing "universal rebel soul," put in Hutz's own words. The compilation is quick to follow Gogol Bordello's latest Gypsy Punks record, a paralleled artifactual blowup of raw live-energy bombastics captured by Steve Albini...an element definitely present on this collection of tunes, with amazing instrumentation and a well-pieced-and-produced style. Where was that gypsy dance-party explosion again?! Mehanata--and you're invited. [MT]