A Mad And Faithful Telling - Devotchka Album Review

Devotchka

Album Review

On Later...with Jools Holland (Friday 18 April) DeVotchKa absolutely blew me away, and the audience too I think. Active for 11 years, their passionate fusion of Greek, Romani, Slavic, Bolero, Mariachi, American folk and punk (not as outrageous at NY's Gogol Bordello's punk, which they're often compared too, and wrongly), is confusingly dubbed 'freak-folk'. There's nothing freaky about this music whatsoever. Others simply call it 'world music' for simplification and genre identification purposes. Whatever the tag, this ultra talented Denver - based quartet of multi-instrumentalists is blazing a trail with this highly impressive collection. Not wishing to be disrespectful to our American cousins, but this isn't the kind of music you'd imaging Yanks tackling, which makes it even more fascinating. The Jools Holland slot qualified that. Film lovers will probably recognise them anyway: they scored the soundtrack to 2006 flick Little Miss Sunshine. Between them, lead singer Nick Urata, Tom Hagerman, Jeanie Schroder and Shawn King play 12 instruments. Not wishing to limit themselves and waste their finely honed skills, DeVotchKa are not only sophisticated, they're totally fearless in embracing eastern European flavours (and some Mexican / South American), almost in the way that Beirut did when they recorded their French tribute, The Flying Club Cup, a masterpiece . Choosing a favourite track is difficult as they're all great fun to listen too. As I'm bound too, mmh...na...just buy it and you'll love it !

Promise.

File under: I want more, now, now, now.

Elly Roberts