Purchase:
Track List & Samples:
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1. Mariana
2. Loli Phabay (The Red Apple)
3. Shimdiggy
4. Tayna (Secret)
5. La Circuma De La Drum (The Tavern on the Road) + Bessarabian Hora
6. Rustemul
7. Zaznobila + Baro Foro [
View Video]8. Moldovan Batuta
Unreleased Track!
Manea Cu Voca
Reviews
A Balkan beat, gypsy fire, a Serbian brass band, a sexy vocalist, a dazzling show... This is hot music for cold nights; Romashka rocks. -- AllAboutJazz.com (12/14/2005)
A Balkan beat, gypsy fire, a Serbian brass band, a sexy vocalist, a dazzling show. There is a big Balkan music scene in New York City, and it is best experienced at local venues that cater to their crowds with plenty of music, space for dancing, and free flowing spirits. Places like Mehanata on Canal Street and even the famed Knitting Factory pack their venues for Gypsy/Balkan shows. I was fortunate to catch just such a show with one of the best of these young bands at the Knit a few months ago. Romashka didn’t disappoint that night, and neither does the group's debut CD.
“Mariana” kicks things off with a nod to the brass band of the great Serbian trumpeter, Boban Markovic. The pumping tuba of Ron Caswell, quick Jeff Perlman sax runs, the frenetic fiddling of Jake Shulman-Ment, and the oh so powerfully sweet horn of one of NYC’s best young trumpeters, Ben Holmes, make for a danceable delight. Vocalist Inna Barmash showcases her strongly sensual lyrical skills on the wonderfully catchy “Loli Phabay (The Red Apple),” which has a castanet backbeat and a lovely string-based feel courtesy of guitarist Joey Weisenberg and Shulman-Ment. The brass is back with the carnival atmosphere of Perlman’s own fun loving “Shimdiggy,” which has the composer and Holmes trading solos over an infectious rhythm. Caswell’s tuba is present throughout, and in conjunction with Timothy Quigley’s percussion, he sets up the infectiously danceable backbeat to all these tunes.
With no apologies to Hernando’s Hideaway, Stevhen Iancu’s accordion makes “Tayna (A Secret)” a flowing forum for Barmash to vocally layer a Russian feel on top of this tango with beautiful results. It all comes together in the cooker “La Cîrcuma De La Drum (The Tavern on the Road),” allowing Weisenberg, Shulman-Ment and Iancu to change direction with the intense “Rustemul.” “Zaznobila & Baro Foro (She Messed With My Head in the Great City)” again finds Barmash in powerful voice as Perlman’s clarinet and Shulman-Ment’s violin energize this tune to its conclusion. Closing with the traditional instrumental “Moldovan Batuta,” a surprise tango reprise awaits the patient listener. This is hot music for cold nights; Romashka rocks.
Bittersweet, sepia-toned nostalgia...irresistible rhythmic drive...visceral punch - The Forward (07/29/2005)
Fans of Balkan wedding music will appreciate the wildly kinetic rhythms of "Mariana," while "Moldovan Batuta" could have sprung from the book of any Bessarabian klezmer outfit. The Russian tango "Tanya" drips with the kind of bittersweet, sepia-toned nostalgia for which both traditional klezmer and Romani music have become aural tropes. And "Shimdiggy" - a freewheeling original that merges New Orleans rhythms with Central European melodies - sounds like what you might get if you mated the Dirty Dozen Brass Band with Ivo Papasov's ulgarian Wedding Band...
Romashka owes its irresistible rhythmic drive to drummer Timothy Quigley and tubist Ron Caswell, who slyly funkify even the most traditional of the group's arrangements. But much of the band's visceral punch comes from Lithuanian-born singer Inna Barmash. With her wide, throaty vibrato and ringing delivery, Barmash has an uncommon gift for communicating the emotional valence of a song, even when its lyrics are in a foreign tongue. ... She's the kind of singer with whom you could fall in love.
Romashka and Slavic Soul Party! are two bands that play traditional gypsy and Balkan dance party music with various combinations of sax, percussion, clarinet, violin, accordion, trumpet and tuba. During a break at a recent Romashka show, Inna Barmash, 26, a singer from Lithuania says: "There is something about gypsy music that people just respond to, whether it's flamenco, Hungarian gypsy or Russian gypsy - it catches people's souls in a very immediate way.
People seem to know how to dance to it intuitively." Indeed they do. With a few stomps of Inna's high-heeled boot, the band furiously launches into Mariana.
Diners at the East Village Turkish restaurant abandon their tables, and dance in the tiny space in front of the band, oblivious to the grumpy waiters who get jostled by the crowd.
Every track is crisp and danceable, with sassy, jazzy horns, crashing percussion, and throbbing accordion. Vocalist Inna Barmash warbles as slinkily as a Balkan Edith Piaf.
In a little over a year, Romashka have built a reputation as one of the most exciting and energetic bands in New York City's world music scene... Romashka will command the attention of any listener interested in Gypsy, Balkan, and klezmer music, along with anybody simply looking for something high-octane to help them party the night away.
The sax-led instrumental groove of the original "Shimdiggy" is irresistible, and the beat threatens to spin out of control as you near the end of "La Cîrcuma De La Drum (The Tavern On The Road)." Inna Barmash's voice brings things back to earth, injecting raw emotion and power into every note she sings.
Quotes
- -----DJ Joro-Boro, the Bulgarian Bar
- -----DJ Gaetano Fabri, resident DJ at l" les divan du monde " in paris - the gypsynight all stars party
In plain English: "Tell the people of Romashka that their music is wild. I play quite often la circuma de la drum - verrueckt, alle tanzen"
- ------DJ of Balkanbeats in Berlin
- -----Michael Ginsburg, Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band
- -----Pete Rushefsky, tsimbalist
- -----DJ Poodlecannon
- -----Paula, fan from California
- ----Sara, myspace
