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DeVotchKa: How It Ends
The term global or world music is enough to put this reviewers teeth on edge for a week. Fortunately for the globe, and for this reviewer, DeVotchKa is far from being yet another untalented band featured on a corporate sampler. Their style, at first dangerously eclectic, simplifies on repeated listens. How It Ends is a passionate trip around the world, but there is none of the formlessness usually associated with world music. DeVotchKa plays skillfully within a strict framework of cultural notations, and the bands fourth release is an energetic pleasure from beginning to end. DeVotchKa is a Denver-based quartet of classically trained rock musicians. Each member plays at least three instruments, parlaying their modest size into the impact of a full orchestra. The sound is lush and layered, replete with strings, percussion, piano, and traditional folk instruments. Lead singer Nick Uratas voice soars like a balladeer and sighs like a torch singer, switching often between French, Spanish and English. The album begins with a series of Latin pieces, recalling both tango and spaghetti westerns. Indeed, one would expect to hear Twenty Six Temptations in a Robert Rodriguez or Tarantino film a stirring and melodramatic desert epic. With the title track, How It Ends, Latin influences begin to converge with European roots. Charlene Mittnacht is a remixed version of the Amelie polka waltz. Were Leaving has a great mariachi trumpet line, followed by the Jewish kerchief dance of Such A Lovely Thing, containing some rapid fire violin that is as stirring as the Latin tangos. Recombinant culture reaches its peak on Viens Avec Moi, sung in French but backed by solid Mexican guitar and German glockenspiel. The instrumental tracks Lunnaya Pogonka and Reprise close the album on the far side of the ocean, leaving the listener feeling as if he has migrated from Latin America to old Eastern Europe. This is evocative music informed by some of the most passionate cultures in the world. The Russian, Germanic and Latin influences can be clearly heard. However, DeVotchKa owes as much to the electronic age and the lessons of modern appropriation as it does to their cultural roots. The final creation is pure rock, on a suitable international scale. How It Ends is a strong and enjoyable release worthy of wider, perhaps even global, attention.
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