Join Lolo Lovina ('Red Beer) for an intoxicating brew of Balkan mayhem! Fronted by Hungarian Romani-Gypsy singer Sarah Bedak, this music fusion reflects the cosmopolitan identity of an artist who grew up with three native cultures. Expect traditional Gypsy tunes alternating with Lolo originals, and arrangements that are solid, tight, classy and brassy.
Eyes ablaze, gypsy singer Sarah Bedak stokes a fire
We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Dismiss
Normal text size
★★★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.