The Warsaw Village Band's new CD Uprooting (World Village 468036) is the group’s boldest venture yet. The ensemble invited representatives of traditional Polish folklore to join them in the recording studio they also forged contacts with two dub-sound and scratch specialists. In view of this unusual blend of elements and epochs, the Warsaw Village Band’s motto for Uprooting, comes from Reggae hero Burning Spear, “Remember the past, but keep it livin’ in the future.”

Warsaw Village Band is known for their trance-like rhythms of two drums and the so-called “white voices” – near-screams, primeval, clear and wild, combined with the szuka (knee-violin), cello, dulcimer, violin and hurdy-gurdy. The Warsaw Village Band experiments with its roots, creating an entirely new, suspense-charged relationship between the traditional and the modern. Their great love for their national musical heritage and the will to preserve the old musical traditions are the chief ingredients for their success.

For the Warsaw Village Band preservation does not mean restoration but – as in the case of “The Pogues” and “Les Negresses Vertes” – reanimation, the conveyance of the songs’ spirit into the present. So Polka gets a shot of Techno. The result is a sound young people identify with, a sound that has mesmerized audiences all the way from the United States of America to Japan.

[Buy Uprooting now].