Goran Bregovic

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the man is notorious for filling albums with slightly re-different arrangements of all his old tunes and packaging compilations as new albums, but those three are keepers, with 2002's Tales and Songs From Weddings and Funerals at the top.

Tales and Songs is a classical / chamber music treatment of folk Balkan gypsy brass music. Ivo Papazov & Fanfare Ciocărlia are two of the best known bands in the West (the latter's albums have been getting more and more traditional, but their first record Radio Pascani is a sustained 200 BPM speed metal take. if you like those, you probably already know about Bregovic's soundtrack to Underground, but I don't know why a masterpiece like Tales and Songs doesn't have a higher profile around here by now.

if you like Villalobos' Blehorkestar Bakija Bakic sample on Fizheuer Zieheuer, there's more out there, and Bregovic might be your transition point -- though only a few of his tracks actually fearlessly use an 808 kick drum, the production & editing on his records often maximizes the rhythm section in surreal ways that couldn't happen outside of a studio

recently discovered Sezen Aksu's Dugun Ve Cenaze (The Wedding and the Funeral) from 1997, Bregovic producing Aksu singing his songs in Turkish. The arrangements are similiar, but the multi-cultural lines are even blurrier -- backing vocals tend towards Bulgarian Choir on a few tracks, house music beats barrel out of nowhere on a few tracks. Sometimes, almost too cheesy, but her voice is so powerful it's just as often religious

anyway I have one Bijelo Dugme compilation -- I wish I liked it better, it sounds a bit stiff to me, but I can imagine they picked the wrong tracks, and I've hardly heard all the Bregovic albums so I'm open to any recommendations

i've got a Bijelo Dugme album around somewhere (the one with the tits from 74). it's decent eastern euro heavy prog.

I know the cover you're talking about

looks like they reunited last year: http://www.answers.com/topic/bijelo-dugme

'Kalasnikof' is not my favorite song from that Sezen Aksu record but it's got a fantastic video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ni9UXTbUPO8

yeah this version trumps it, wish I'd been there: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Bs51FCW8Vlk

Underground Cocek

the man is playing this sunday in san francisco and I CAN'T GO. I can't believe this.

got his new album 'Alkohol' last weekend. actual new album of almost all new songs. Not sure if it's quite as perfect as 'Songs and Tales', but it's definitely more of a uptempo record, there are no slow choral respites between the loud songs, every track on 'Alkohol' is pretty much full blast balkan dance party sorrow music

& the two dead jpgs from first post are -

http://www.discogs.com/Goran-Bregovic-Music-Inspired-And-Taken-From-Underground/release/947818
http://www.amazon.com/Temps-Gitans-Extrait-Bande-Kuduz/dp/B0000084FD/ref=pd_sim_m_1

I saw him on Wednesday here in Austin. I was shocked that nearly half of his set - "all songs composed by Goran Bregovic" - were actually old folk tunes, or Roma songs. He stole at least two songs written by Saban Bajramovic, recorded when Bregovic was less than six years old! And to call a song with the lyrics, "Sitting here la la, waiting for my ya ya" (sung to the tune of (what else) Lee Dorsey's "Ya Ya") "one of my best compositions," is downright laughable.

Dorsey and Bajramovic are properly credited in the publishing on the CDs. Even though it's often common to assign your own name in the publishing as 'composer' when all you're doing is an arrangement of a public domain traditional, since about half of what Bregovic does are those traditionals, it can grate trying to figure out what's what.

'Tale III' takes its choir part directly from the Georgian chorale 'Tsintskaro', the same one Kate Bush lifted for 'Hello Earth', and hearing that was actually the first time it occured to me that she probably didn't write that herself... but even if his approach comes out of his rock star background, the basic mission statement of making crazy manic classic pop out of Balkin / Georgian / Italian folk & gypsy traditionals, I'm into it

new album is a grower. I am drinking too much.

“My mother divorced my father because dad, like most officers, he drank too much. After she left him he underwent an antabus treatment to stop drinking. The next 15 years he did not drink. My mother died of leukemia and dad’s second wife told me that she had followed him secretly a few times…. Night after night he would be sitting till dawn under the windows of the room where my mother was dying on 3rd floor of the military hospital in Split, smoking. Then he returned to his village on the Hungarian frontier and planted a vineyard that yielded 1000 liters per year. He outlived mother by twenty years and drunk those 1000 liters more or less alone. I dedicate ALKOHOL to my parents.”