Album Review: Goran Bregović - Champagne For Gypsies

Goran Bregović returns this month with yet another exhilarating album of the most joyous life affirming music imaginable. Supported by his Weddings & Funerals Orchestra, Bregović is here to celebrate the good times and the sad, and let them all slip into ribald drunken reverie with gallons of champagne. As much as this album is not in a language many of us would understand, Bregović points us in the right direction in his liner notes which shine a light on the problems Gypsies have recently been facing in Europe. Apparently it's not an endless big fat wedding over there.

Presidente – featuring the illustrious Gipsy Kings – starts with a police siren, which fades as the beats kick in. It leaves listeners with the feeling that we are running away from authority and seeking freedom in the arms of a riotously law breaking party. Similarly, On A Leash featuring Ireland's Selina O'Leary, is a claustrophobic love song that comes with metaphorical intent. Despite these weighty concerns Bregović's approach is vibrant and exhilarating. Lashings of slightly out of tune brass, intricate rhythms and banging Balkan beats played at breakneck speeds prove to be irresistible as they add up to be as intoxicating as the champagne Bregović's drinking. To the uninitiated it may sound like the wildest circus music you've never heard. Ciao Bello, the old Italian partisan song that originated in the Second World War, unleashes complete and utter pandemonium, making the humble polka a thing of wonder in Bregović's hands.

Irreverent and out of control, Bregović aims to get us dancing, laughing and simply enjoying life.