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Dancing is a great segue into the new album by Romanian Balkan group, Mahala Rai Banda. I've been onto this band since Shantel produced and released "Iest Sexy" on Electric Gypsyland, around the same time that the band dropped "Mahalageasca," one of the best Balkan dance songs I've ever heard. They're young and voracious on stage, representing the best of where the traditional wedding and funeral music is going. The title of their latest, Ghetto Blasters, is partly ironic. Denoting '80s style boomboxes that blasted hip-hop, Mahala sounds little like what you'd expect to come out of that name, and yet the idea of blasting music makes perfect sense, given how LOUD those horn lines are. They do share a common love with hip-hop's roots ("Balkan Reggae"), yet even that song is much more Eastern European than Bronxian. This band creates sing along hits ("Zabrakadabra") which, with its big band jazz horn section, leaves the listener thumbing along after its four-and-a-half minutes have expired. Mahala Rai Banda is one of the most exciting projects arising from the Balkan scene today, and Ghetto Blasters is certain to beckon their ever growing audience in droves. 12/05/09
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