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The Beginning

To start off this blog, I figure it's best to start where my fascination with Balkan music did: the poppin' Balkan Brass Band. A friend introduced me to them in high school, and I've been in love ever since. Their charts range from traditional Balkan brass music to arrangements of pop tunes like Mission Impossible, and their playing is bombastic and soulful. Being in high school, the concept of mixed meter blew my budding 16-year-old musician mind. Thus we find Kerta Mangae Dae.

The non-Western scales of Slavic countries also caught my young ear. Slavic Soul Party's Opa Cupa combines an insistent beat with entrancing vocals to produce on of my favorite tracks to this date. Not to mention the dirty triple tonguing in the trumpets and the fat oom-pah laid down by that raunchy low brass section. Finish it all off with an accordion solo and you've got yourself a certified bop.

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