Eyes ablaze, gypsy singer Sarah Bedak stokes a fire
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★★★½
When it does catch fire, it blazes up in a sudden inferno. The two saxophones coil and snake around each other in a mad scramble of melody over tearaway rhythms punctuated by bucking syncopations and juddering stop-times. And then out the front there’s Sarah Bedak, with her eyes also ablaze and her voice by turns sultry or strident.
Sarah Bedak’s voice is by turns sultry and strident.
Credit:Sian Sandilands
That’s Lolo Lovina at their best, upholding the proud Romani musical tradition, which has been pervasive and influential on a scale to rival African-American music. It, too, has been steeled in persecution and suffering (the Roma, like the Jews, subjected to Nazism’s most brutish terror), spawning songs of lament, resilience, and, above all, celebration of this transient thing called life.
The year with the black hole at its heart
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The year with the black hole at its heart
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Speaking after a live-stream concert at the end of May, the super-versatile percussionist Jess Ciampa guessed that in the year prior to the lockdown he d had only a single day off. Then, for the next seven weeks, he had zero interaction with other musicians. Some players went for more than nine months without performing, and countless albums were delayed in the hope performing in support of the release might become possible. In many parts of the world they re still waiting.