Warsaw Village Band : Uprooting If you enjoy what you read here, please consider showing us a small bit of your love and support with a subscription! Become a monthly supporter for the price of a cup o' joe or a nice dinner. Choose Your Donation Dear Reader : $5.00 USD - monthly Generous Supporter : $10.00 USD - monthly Music of the Month : $20.00 USD - monthly Angel : $500.00 USD - yearly

Warsaw Village Band Uprooting World Village, US (www.worldvillagemusic.com) / Jaro, Germany (www.jaro.de) The Warsaw Village Band return after their landmark debut People's Spring, and the advance word on Uprooting was that WVB were taking Polish traditional music further into electronica. I half expected Uprooting to be in the vein of the mind-blowing remixes that closed People's Spring, but such is not the case. The fact is, Warsaw Village Band are doing for Polish traditional folk music what Hedningarna and V�rttin� did for Swedish and Finnish music, respectively. Certainly the band's primary vocalists, Maja Kleszcz and Magdalene Sobczak, remind me of the lyric flights of fancy that V�rttin� conjure, especially when joined by the Lipsk woman's choir. Uprooting's first proper track, "In The Forest," is unabashedly experimental, a dense mixture of electronic scratching and even a siren (!) dicing up the bobbing violins and trance-inducing dulcimer. "When Johnny went to fight in the war" might be the result if Tom Waits were to rewrite Polish folk music: snaredrum, scratching, and xylophone make the tune the most avant-garde on the disc. But WVB prove that they can find the groove in ancient melodies apart from technological wizardry. The work-song "Matthew" comes off as a loping field-holler, complemented by staccato violin and off-kilter percussion. "Let's Play, Musicians" puts me in mind of a sultry version of the traditional English tune "The Lyke Wake Dirge," with its unearthly quality that builds throughout. The song is a lament for a young bride leaving her home, and it seems pinned between wonder and terror. But my personal favorite track is "I've Slayed the Rye," which concerns a peasant who has destroyed his domineering master's crops. The gliding violins, laced with echo, are reminiscent of the post-bluegrass musings of The Horseflies; ominous, harrowing, and dark. The Warsaw Village Band have an overwhelming sound, one so familiar yet foreign that the group might as well have landed in the Polish countryside from outer-space. Bounding fearlessly across past, present, and future, they represent what the best modern roots bands are all about. - Lee Blackstone CD available from cdRoots Buy MP3 downloads

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