(Klezmer Jazz, Balkan, Cabaret, Gypsy Jazz, New Orleans Brass, Storytelling, Folk, Eastern European Traditions) [WEB] Petrojvic Blasting Company - A History of Public Relations Dilemmae - 2010, FLAC (tracks), lossless

~ Excerpts from M. Benkelman's Suspended Bridges: The Engineering of a Fantasy ~
Some time ago, in the encroaching mountains of Serbia or Tennessee, two brothers shared a quixotic dream: to build a new bridge from Turkey to Europe. The bridge, lined with tapestries and populated by a thousand great white birds, would soar over the Mediterranean sea. During their traverse, commuters would be flanked by low-growing patches of colorful flora. The bridge would be a swath of color and light, a paintbrush stroke between continents, between cultures, between civilizations. On each independence day of every independent polity (because in our unity as people, such celebrations are universal) grandiose displays of fireworks would erupt from the bridge and the Christmas (yes Christmas, for the brothers grew up too long without one) lights would crawl across the bridge like festive veins of ivy on the eves of all the world's favorite holidays on or around December 25th.
Pleased by their idea, the brothers set off with considerable alacrity to sell rare, forgotten and unclaimed music in the streets, that they may raise the funds (approximately $85 billion would certainly do) by the generosity (monetarily speaking) of the persons whose lives they one day hoped to improve.
While journeying south and west in hopes of finding a venerated yet loathed - depending, that is, upon one's side of the aisle - Moroccan bridge builder whose inventions and discoveries in the field of arcs and geometric spanning had shaken the foundation upon which Europe's most architectural minds were, until recently, so precariously perched; and which architect, quite unfortunately lacked the sharp and sturdy tongue that is required if one is to spread open the gilded fingers of the continent's investors and thus lived in squalor and solitude, far from men. Along the way and deep in the south of Spain, they encountered - the two brothers - their cousin Daniel, a pugilist and flute maker, whom they had not seen since their uncle's wedding, during which blows had been exchanged, blood (or at least wine) spilt, gifts ungiven, leaving the deep respect and love between the two families forever dashed upon the bouldery rift between those unyielding mountains of stony, patriarchal pride.
*
In defiance of his father's wishes and with but one frustrated tear in his eye, Daniel bade farewell to his home - the home whose walls had soaked up and made soft condensation of the familiar sounds of youth, the moisture of the roots; the home whose door had each day opened with a cool exhalation, pressing back the incessant glare of the sun for an exhilerating moment as if spreading a curtain, baring the heat-painted panorama of masonry and minarets and the wide, roaring sea, which clambered up the sloping rocks, taking from them slowly and drowning the stories caught between their layers with its steady, booming sighs.
Far below now and nearly all the way to the shaded bend of the last switchback before he would forever lose sight of his town - his bay with the sea cradled and half-tamed in its arms, his cliffs and the brilliant patch of sky they, the cliffs, cutting so sharply & forcefully upward and seem to have been carved out especially for him- Daniel turned back to take it all in one last time: his youth, his home, and the faint figure of his father, barely distinguishable from a tree, leaning against the light blue door clamped over the cave's small, puckered, downturned mouth; an imperceptible shadow passing over his face as the smoke rose heavily from his pipe.
Turning away, so his ears now made their final pass over the scene (how hastily it all fades), Daniel thought he heard somewhere amid the upward gush of the sea, the still, hot city and the scuttle of wind over stone and brittle bush; on some audible plane nestled between the sound of one's thinking and the sound of wings, he thought he heard his father mumbling the syntactically unique string of curses that now, under certain conditions, vibrate in his own throat just so perfectly.
*
The wind pushed them backwards as they walked, the three of them, mostly in silence and somewhat apart. Occasionally two would catch each other's stride, sharing for a brief moment the thoughts that pursued and absorbed them. Sharing for briefer moments their voices - rivulets of thoughtless, vibrating air - guiding one another to safety somewhere above or below the thoughts. They invented a vocabulary for the mundane things, a simple, low and highly expressive tongue that reduced their small talk to its most nonsensical and essential molecules. Over the graver issues, they fought mundanely but viciously, seeking disagreement where there was none imaginable, testing one another for the sake of noise, that it may wash out what the waves brought rushing in, the cold and mysterious future, the steadily eroding past, the indiscernibly whispered answers to their cacophonous longings and questions.

The Petrojvic Blasting Company's debut record, illustrated by "shambolic gypsy folk" & "careening barroom rags," "where storytelling is as important as instrumental might." (LA Weekly)
Album Notes:
In 1989, in the encroaching mountains of Serbia or Tennessee, an idea occurred between two brothers; or rather, a quixotic dream: to build a bridge from Turkey to Europe. This bridge would be lined with tapestries and populated by a thousand great white birds. Soaring over the Mediterranean sea, as it were, commuters would be flanked by low growing patches of colorful flora. The bridge would be a swath of color and light, a paintbrush stroke between continents, between cultures, between civilizations. On each independence day of each independent country, elaborate displays of fireworks would erupt from the bridge and the Christmas lights would crawl across the bridge like festive veins of ivy on the eves of all the world's favorite holidays.
The brothers were pleased by their idea, and so they set off to play music in the streets, that they may raise the funds (approximately $85 billion would do) by the generosity (monetarily speaking) of the persons whose lives they one day hope to improve.
Journeying south and west in hopes of finding a venerated Moroccan bridge builder, whose inventions were challenging the minds of Europe's most gifted architects, while perpetually lacking force enough to pry open the gilded hands of the continent's investors; they met- the brothers- deep in the south of Spain, their cousin Daniel, a pugilist and a flute maker, whom they had not seen since their uncle's wedding, when, after blows were exchanged, blood was spilt, gifts were ungiven, a deep respect and love between families had been forever dashed upon the bouldery rift between mountains of stony pride.
-based on preliminary interviews for the forthcoming non-fiction tome "Suspended Bridges" by Max Benkelman
Review:
Alan
A Petrojvic Blast
These guys are amazing. Very new and refreshing sound. Lyrics are poetic, original, intelligent and extremely enteraining.
The brass sound with the virtuoso accordian provides fantastic music.

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