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On Sacro Sud, Italian revolutionary Enzo Avitabile explores the non-liturgical religious traditions of the Italian south, in collaboration with with Polifonica Alphonsiana, Luigi Lai, Maurizio Martinotti and I Cantori del Miserere di Sessa. Musically, this is an eye-opener. The most important elements of the record are Luigi Lai and his launeddas, (a Sardinian reed instrument, a sort of souped-up Pan's pipes), Martinotti and his ghironda (hurdy-gurdy) and the choral voices. The choruses offer the liturgical undercurrent of these songs, the launeddas and ghironda the counterpoint, with Avitabile and his saxophone covering the middle ground and uniting them all. Read More | Listen Dona Dumitru Siminica is an unlikely heartthrob. A tidy, unremarkable looking man with a neat mustache and an eerily androgynous voice, he has the aura of a proto-Klaus Nomi, but without the outré fashion sense. But he set the Bucharest ladies' hearts all atwitter with his remarkable singing. The third edition of Sounds from a Bygone Age is a collection of songs recorded in the early '60's. It shows him in firm command of the Romanian equivalent of the blues. Highly ornamented, warmly emotive, and profoundly sorrowful, Siminica's smoky alto-range voice goes beyond haunting and into some otherworldly space... Read More | Listen I had my fears upon the arrival of this concert recording of Hoven Droven. I'm not much of a fan of live albums: all of the requisite How Are You Doing's and Thank You (Current City)'s and agog audience reactions only make me feel, well, left out, sitting and listening in the confines of my living room. But Jumping At The Cedar is a tremendous document of an evening with Hoven Droven. The band really cooks, right from the first shuffling beats... Read More | Listen