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Hailing from New Mexico and now based in Budapest, the A Hawk And A Hacksaw duo (Jeremy Barnes leading from the front on accordion, drums and vocals, and Heather Trost on violin) consolidate their recent flirtations with Balkan folk music in the company of musicians drawn from recent collaborators, the Hun Hangar Ensemble.
Blending traditional tunes with original material, Délivrance is a characteristically excitable fourth album in which torrential cascades of conventional and folk instruments turn into driven downpours of multi-hued colours, sheer unfettered adrenalin and noise levels that seem to get progressively louder with each new track.
The Greek-derived, bouzouki-led, melody-drenched Foni Tu Argile gets things off to an infectious start, Barnes's own Kertész an incendiary combination of accordion, violin and cimbalom that sounds as if it has been lifted from a Bucharest café band. No less combustible a carnival is the hyperventilating Turkiye, which deftly incorporates new material with existing melodies from Bosnia, Serbia and Turkey. A brief pause for breath comes courtesy of the morose but wonderfully titled Vasalisa Carries A Flaming Skull Through the Forest, its world-weary clarinet, shivering cimbalom and clattering cowbell percussion surprisingly affecting.
But underneath all the noise and frenetic cross-fertilising of old and new, East and West, an obvious musical intelligence is at work. Happily, it also clearly recognises the value of fun. As riots go, this is one you'll enjoy finding yourself caught in the middle of. --Michael Quinn
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Customer Reviews
A Hawk and a Hacksaw consist of accordion prodder and drum basher Jeremy Barnes and violinist Heather Trost. Together they create their own fabulous brand of European folk music. On this release they have collaborated with a troupe of Hungarian musicians to beef up the sound and add to the fun. So, we hear the blast of trumpets and the comedic parp of tubas. A saxophone also rears its sassy head, as well as more trad folk instruments such as a bouzouki and some wonderfully played cimbalom.
To the music - "The Man Who Sold His Beard" features twitchy rhythms and accordion, strings and brass rubbing their melodic shoulders together. "Kertesz" contains a quirky vocal line from Barnes and some rattlingly fast cimbalom. "Hummingbirds" has a tremulous violin and more teeth-grindingly rapid cimbalom playing. "Raggle Taggle" is a maudlin, slow-paced violin ballad that wheezes along like a peasant in his twilight years......then mutates into a jaunty jig! "Turkiye" is a musical concoction of stomping beats, frisky horns and accordion and fiddle.
My favourite tunes at present would have to be, firstly, "Vasalisa Carries a Flaming Skull Through the Forest" : This is a haunting, sinister composition by Heather Trost that sounds like music for dancing skeletons! Secondly, the album's closing tune, "Lassu", is a blinder, with many surprise chords on the accordion and a high-pitched, slightly warped violin lead line that is sweetly sorrowful.
"Delivrance" is a deeply satisfying musical journey. If you like the idea of virtuoso folk musicians delivering relentlessly rousing, beautifully executed tunes then this album is a must buy.
Easily as impressive as Alaska in Winter's work, or that of Devotchka, this latest A Hawk & A Hacksaw release is irrepressibly optimistic, but perhaps less impressive in context. Take it to Budapest, impress it with your knowledge of cathedrals, sit it down in the main square and it will all make perfect sense, but in doing so it may lose its other-worldly sparkle.
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