Greg Harness,
Album Review
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The title track of Victory Party kicks off with the a background of fluttering clarinets and simple percussion under semi-chanted vocals, then adds accordion, bass, and violins one instrument at a time until the full band is supporting the singing. I got caught up in the way the music was building that for the first few times through this song I didn’t listen to the incredible words, the story of a celebration, of a victory won, but won at a great price. The lyrics talk of a blinded veteran, the charred remains of an orphanage, and washtub whisky, leading me to wonder what the partiers must have been fighting against for this to be victory.
That song sets up this brand new record from Vancouver-based accordionist Geoff Berner, full of great lyrics, wonderful arrangements, and most of all some mind-bending juxtapositions. Klezmer and Eastern European folk music is interpreted through a punk lens. Happy party music underlies stories of harsh times and difficult lives. Sometimes these songs make me want to dance, sometimes they make me want to fight, and often they make me want to do both at exactly the same time.
The musicians here are impressive. Berner sings and plays accordion. Wayne Adams provides most of the percussion, while Brigitte Dajczer and Diona Davies bring some great violin playing to the table. Bob Cohen is credited with “some violin, some shouting,” and Jamie Thompson plays “additional suitcase percussion.” A couple of New York-based klezmer musicians, Michael Winograd on clarinet and Benjy Fox-Rosen on bass, do a wonderful job of bringing out the klezmer influences in these arrangements. Together this band really knows how to rise and fall together, how to layer and build and pull back, how to either support or overwhelm the vocals as needed.
I love the way this record combines so many disparate elements. And listening to this music always makes me want to act, always wants to make me do something. As the singer asks in I Kind of Hate Songs With Ambiguous Lyrics, “Don’t you have something you love enough that you wanna clearly defend?” I know my answer to that question.
03/08/11
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