Here comes a sound that you probably haven't ever heard. They are called KAL and were formed by the brothers Ristic, Dushan, and Dragan. They are Romani Gypsies from Belgrade, Serbia who have blended their traditional Balkan Gypsy sounds with the more contemporary music of what they listened to in the clubs of Belgrade and Budapest.
With energy to spare, KAL has an exotic sound all their own, and this self-titled CD packs 12 incredible tracks that bring you into the traveling troop of Gypsy life before turning around and booming you out into the stratosphere with hard beats that keep the party going.
The Ristics wanted to keep their traditional music alive, yet they were also influenced by the techno and house music that was thumping out of the discos in Eastern Europe. While growing up in central Serbia and feeling the repression that all Gypsies feel, they formed a band to bring to light the harshness and discrimination the Romani Gypsies felt after Yugoslavia was broken up when Tito fell. I don't speak Slavic or Gypsy let alone Romani Gypsy, so I can't understand what they are saying, but their groove is unstoppable.
"Duj Duj" is the first track, and it starts out with a single guitar and a double bass, that brings to mind images of Ali Baba and the forty thieves. Its percussion beats are hypnotic and the blending of the clarinet and the accordion create an aura of mysticism. The whole CD has that mystic root to it, the root of the Gypsies, the root of surviving. It’s followed by "Dvojka", which sounds like Gypsy-ska combined with whatever Dragan is singing. He creates a "Squirrel Nut Zipper" sound with a Gypsy scat halfway through the song.
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