I am saying inevitable since due to my keen interest in 20th century Classical Music, ethnic melodies was to be a major point of interest. The main reason is modern classical music has gained huge momentum by Folk music and in due time ethnic music. Balinese, Java, African music have all shared important weight in the new developments not only on musical terms, but also on philosophical side (Here especially Chinese and Japanese).
The first record that I wanted to review is from a French label called La Chant Du Monde. Even though my French consists of several words, I can still guess what this label is about. This particular record is the native songs and dances from the former Yugoslavia region. Although it is called Yugoslavia in general, all tracks in the album have been detailed with region names which are now the small countries.
Honestly spoken, all the music on the album have a distinct gypsy flavor to it. This is all the natural since this area and also including the Balkans have been culturally rich and diversified with gypsies taking the main stage in the musical aspect. There are also small traces of Russian folk music with some emphasis on musical instruments, but it is negligable.
I cannot understand any of the names of the songs, but I can easily relate to all of them. Being Turkish and having breathed tons of gypsy origin music all my life, all the similarities directly strike me. The only thing that I found hard to grasp was the absence of a really powerful brass band. Brass bands are the key aspect of ethnic Yugoslavian music or at least I thought so. I may still have a lot to learn. I'll come back with more ethnic records in the not so distant future.
It is hard to find this record, therefore I cannot provide any link. However, you can search it regularly on Ebay. You might just get lucky.
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