When I was in college, international folk dancers tended play the same recordings over and over when they danced. They seemed to drugged on adrenalin all the time, so it was hard to hold a meaningful conversation. Many still do that, but the Balkan music others listen to has changed. There are a number of up-to-the-minute dance bands out here on the west coast and elsewhere. One of these is Seattle's Balkanarama.

Balkanarama "plays Eastern European party music the way it's meant to be played: late at night in crowded rooms, with an intensity fueled by equal parts of passion and rakija." So reads the back of the new EP, Black Sea. Their first album, Nonstop features some great, solid pan-Balkan music, but this new little EP shows changes towards louder and more electric arrangements, in part an attempt to reflect the rock-influenced bands back in the motherland without sounding like a pop band. There are urban Cascadian influences as well.

The most electric track is "Entropy Time," an original Balkan-style song with shattering guitar and soaring fiddle backing English vocals by the sweet voice of Jody Levinson. Another original, "Zamani," is slower and sad, with Macedonian lyrics, keyboard, and drum set. (I wish they'd kept the accordion, but the keyboard works.). The other three songs are traditional, and less "alternative, " but still are strong tracks. Two are Rom, the first a fast chorus song ("The Earth Carries Me") from Macedonia with fiddle, acoustic guitar, and drums. The other is a slow reed-backed song ("Like Birds") of dead sons from Hungary which brings to mind Reptile Palace. Finally, the title track is another slow dance song in Bulgarian which ends spotlighted in electric guitar:

"I work in the transport office so I can hang out at the resort
Send me my passport so I can pay my bill."

Balkanarama is a band that would certainly have fit into Balkans Without Borders!

From the Journal, May 2002, Seattle (all rights reserved) we get a glimpse that sums it up perfectly:

"The last band was Balkanarama. Orphaned children of euro-swing and tango-fusion, orphaned children of the night, began to filter in, loitering at the back of the dance floor, refusing the circles. The mood changed, the dancers, the band, with its hot sax and quasi-electricity. One, two, three layers of lines, to my right, the dancers switched, a middle aged man with expert footwork , two giggling hispanic girls, no one...oh god, I was at the head of the line! On my left, a boy in black hung on my hand, like I was his mom. "Is this right?" "I have no idea." One two three, one two three four...how many people? A hundred, hundred fifty "Balkanarama!" said the MC in that mechanical way festival people queue performers. It was eleven, end of the show. "BALKANARAMA!!" chanted the dancers, clapping. "No, really we have to shut this down. The volunteers have been here all day," whined the MC. And so the dancers in black were left to move on to PolyEsther's, so close and yet so far."