Alkohol

Album Review

The fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late '80s and early '90s gave American world music enthusiasts the chance to hear a lot of Polish, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian artists they hadn't been exposed to previously. Nonetheless, there are some Eastern European artists who — despite doing a good job marketing themselves at home — remained underexposed in the United States long after communism's demise. One of them is Serbian-Croatian guitarist, singer, composer, and bandleader Goran Bregovic, but hopefully, his 2009 release Alkohol will make him better known in North America. Bregovic has been part of the former Yugoslavia's music scene since the days of communism, and Alkohol is clearly the work of a seasoned bandleader. Recorded live in Belgrade, Guca, and Skopje in 2007, Alkohol has some rock influence and some electric guitar but nonetheless demonstrates that Bregovic's Eastern European roots run deep. Picture a brass band that has a Balkan Gypsy orientation and is both rootsy and modern by 2007 standards; that is the type of approach that Bregovic favors on these inspired performances. There are parallels between Bregovic's music and Jewish klezmer as well as parallels between Bregovic's music and Middle Eastern music; Bregovic's band has clearly mastered the art of modal/scalar playing, which is something one finds all over the Middle East, India, and Arabic North Africa. But at the end of the day, Bregovic's use of modality is very much a reflection of his Serbian-Croatian heritage — and listeners who are seriously into world music will realize that this is an Eastern European modality rather than a Middle Eastern or North African modality. For North Americans, Alkohol is an engaging introduction to Bregovic's work.