Sunday Features - Upcoming World Music Artists in Year 2005 - Part I

Warsaw Village Band (JARO)

The word "barbarian" crops up pretty soon in conversation with Wojtek Krzak of the Warsaw Village Band. And it keeps recurring. Not because of anything I've done, I hasten to add, but as a description they adopt not only of their style, but their attitude to Polish traditional music. It's strident, rough, and in your face - the Polish Pogues.

"You will not find many bands like this," says Krzak. "We are barbarians on the violin and other instruments. We use the violin like an electric guitar or the voice just shouting. There's the influence of traditional music of course, but also the sounds of contemporary life. So we're also like a rock band."


Title: Uprooting
Release Date: November 1, 2004

The six members of the Warsaw Village Band live in the Polish capital in a distinctly urban society and four of them were born there. But they have a passion for Polish traditional music and making it vital for their own generation. In Polish they're known as Kapela ze wsi Warszawa - the 'Band from the Village of Warsaw' which clearly implies the collision of urban and rural.


Title: People's Spring
Release Date: May 1, 2003

In the latest album Uprooting, the song 'In the Forest' has a tune from the collection of Oskar Kolberg (1814-90), Poland's pioneering collector of folk songs. The vocals are shouted with a punk-like savagery, intensified by the consonant-heavy Polish language and occasional grunts. The string playing is aggressive and scratchy, but full of character and supercharged with powerful percussion on frame drums and a swish of cymibal.


Title: Kapela Ze Wsi Warszawa
Release Date: December 4, 1998

The band started in 1997 (with a largely different line-up) and won first prize at Polish Radio's Nowa Tradycja (i.e. New Tradition) festival, which led to their debut album. Since then the current members have joined the band and their wider success dates from 2001 and their second album People's Spring which won them the BBC Radio 3 Award for World Music in 2004 in the Newcomers category. Their latest album Uprooting is far ahead of the previous discs in playing and production.