Forget Hip-Hop. Country music, too. Rock & Roll? Passé. I’ve seen the future, and it’s DakhaBrakha, a “world-music quartet” from Kyiv, Ukraine. They play what one wag calls “gypsy jazz.”
DakhaBrakha (aka Daxa Braxa) means “give/take” in the old Ukrainian language. I stumbled across the band on National Public Radio’s “Tiny Desk,” which describes itself as “intimate video performances, recorded live at the desk of All Songs Considered.” Bob Boilen hosts.
First thing I noticed? The look. Marko Halanevych’s shaved head and scruffy beard. Olena Tsybulska, Iryna Kovalenko and Nina Harenetska wearing lamb-fur headgear: black, fuzzy and big; necklaces: shiny, beady and rustic; plus, sheer white dresses with fancy-wancy embroidering, the kind of outfit a modest bride might wear to an ethnic wedding in my hometown of Windber back in the 1950s
DakhaBrakha’s “Tiny Desk” video concert features three songs — “Sho Z-Pod Duba,” “Torokh,” and “Divka-Marusechka” — that run 13 minutes, 27 seconds.
How to describe the music? Minimalist. Folksy. Jazzy. Slow-burn with bursts of creative chaos — sprinkled with ticks and tricks — periodically interrupted by rhythmic counter-currents that explode into shark-frenzy riffs.
I loved it. You might.
PS: For the youngsters among you, The Mamas and the Papas mentioned in the headline were part of the Southern California pop scene in the 1960s. — jsl
