Colorful Are All The Lambs.

The Balkan Situations - Valle E Gajdes

I’ve always had an affinity for whatever glimpses I’ve gotten into Balkan culture/music but it always happened to peripherally come my way and it took a while for me to really explore it on my own. However, I do have to credit The Balkan Situations, who were a nine piece band based in Middletown CT, for causing me to actively pursue an interest in learning what little I have thus far about the region. I caught them a number of years back in a warehouse in Rhode Island, playing a noise show with Lightening Bolt. They’re pretty much all I remember of that night (though in the interest of full disclosure I did kill a bottle of wine [at the very least] during their set alone and came close to shattering it on the concrete floor as I tapped along). Leave it to a group of students to maddeningly play traditional folk music in the middle of no where and show up a roster of noise bands with their ferocity and leave me totally enraptured. I managed to only catch them one other time in New Britain CT with very much the same result. Thankfully, I got a couple cdrs from them before I moved out west & they split up not too long after that. I still listen to those cdrs and something about seeing that music live for the first time really stuck with me. It was certainly the kick in the ass I needed to instill a desire to learn what I can about the Balkans and a longing to make it there in person. Anyway. They’re the main reason I wind up in Croatian-American halls for Croat Bagpipe Jams, buy whatever books I see on the region, download Balkan folk music and obsessively look at related photography on Flickr.

Listen to more: HERE

Watch them play: HERE