World Music Ensemble

In 1991, when true worldbeat artists were few and far between or relatively unknown, before Reptile Palace Orchestra, No Smoking, and the Shanes arrived, when Brave Combo and Boiled in Lead were two of the few artists who dared to present a mixed bag of ethnic music styles in their unique brand of rock & roll, ARC Music assembled this group of respected ethnic musicians for a live concert. From California came the Celtic sounds of Golden Bough featuring guitarist Paul Espinoza, fiddler Florie Brown, and harpist Margie Butler. From Chile came Pablo Carcamo, the multi-instrumentalist and expert in Andean folk music. Celtic and Andean folk music would make an interesting marriage in and of themselves, but when an Italian concert guitarist (Flavio Cucchi), a French accordionist (Enrique Ugarte), a Hungarian cymbalon player (Kalman Balogh), and an Egyptian percussionist (Hossam Ramzy) all join forces, a powerful and unusual musical amalgam is born. "Breton Tunes" is particularly colorful with its up-tempo combination of Celtic and gypsy fiddle, French accordion, Hungarian cymbalon, and rock bass. Ramzy's "El Ataba Gazaz" and "Eddalla ya Aris" are equally as interesting -- Mid-Eastern pieces performed by predominantly Western musicians save for arranger Hossam Ramzy. While the origin of these pieces is seldom clouded, it's the introduction of otherwise "alien" instruments that jump-start and give them new life. ~ Dave Sleger, All Music Guide