Read my lips: Tai Haf Heb Drigolyn (Uninhabited Summer Houses), Rethink Everything
THE ORIGINS of Goran Bregovic’s music are in the Roma brass bands who combine the scales and melodic structures of their Rajasthani roots with the military brass traditions of the Ottoman Empire and the Slavic culture of the former Yugoslavia, taking in Jewish and Arabic influences along the way.
Unique and with universal appeal, it is a living, breathing testimony to the beauty of cultural interaction and evolution. And no one has done more to bring it to global attention than Mr Bregovic.
His latest project Three Letters from Sarajevo unpicks three specific elements that make up the city’s musical culture — Jewish, Islamic and Christian — and, through a focus on their different styles of violin playing, expands them out to their full glory, before recombining them in a glorious synthesis. Marxist musicology at its finest.
TONY BURKE talks to Garth Cartwright author of Princes Amongst Men — Journeys With Romani Gypsy Musicians
New releases from Nazar, Peter Gregson and Mesias Maiguashca
JONATHAN TAYLOR is intrigued by an account of the struggle of Soviet-era musicians to adapt to the strictures of social realism
GEORGE FOGARTY is stunned by the epic and life-affirming sound of an outstanding Palestinian musical collective



