GJUNLER ABDULA and PARNE GADJE ‘BIZOAGOR’

If you have gotten this far you are probably a fan of either Big Low or Parne Gadje. If you are indeed a fan then you probably realise that both groups contain more or less the same members. Smoked Recordings is a kind of collective. We “collect” with each other but also with other artists outside of the two main bands (PG & BL) who we have a genuine spark with. Michiel and Dan, for example, worked with Stuurbaard Bakkerbaard on their 2005 “Whistle Dixie” album. We are also about to start recording a great artist called Kamahl – beautiful Moroccan songs performed solo on the Ud, and there are many more projects being dreamed up. The PROJECTS section of the site keeps you up to date with stuff like this – music not directly from Big Low or Parne Gadje but just as important to all of us. Like this…

GJUNLER ABDULA and PARNE GADJE 'BIZOAGOR’

• Smoked Recordings (via Munich Distribution Services)
• Catalogue no: SR006
• Benelux Release date: October 2006
• Genre: Spoken word/folk/world music

If you have all of the Parne Gadje albums and have seen a few shows you could be excused for thinking you knew all about them. The Bizoagor album will force you to check again. This collaboration with gifted Rroma poet and singer Gjunler Abdula unquestionably establishes Parne Gadje founder and bandoneon player Marc Constandse as an extraordinary composer. It also introduces you to Gjunler: Gjunler Abdula had been a published playwright and journalist, and the first ever Rroma citizen elected to the Skopje City Council in Macedonia before fleeing the Balkan wars to arrive in Holland with his family in 1993. The Bizoagor project is the harvest of a friendship that began between Constandse and Abdula in the late 90’s. Much of the music on the “Bizoagor” album was played and recorded by Marc but the rest of the “Gadjes” were eventually called in to participate. Gjunlers own performances on the album are astounding.

The opening track “Bizoagor” has Constandse using a traditional pilgrimage chant to accompany the poet’s narration of the ancient journey of the Rroma out of the Punjab. The crackling of a fire, a violin, summer night sounds and a galloping horse set the scene for the beginning of the sojourn. The poem itself is as much a personal plea for acceptance as it is a universal prayer to the dead, the forest, the sun, the moon and the infinite trail of the Rroma. Track 2 begins unnervingly with a human heart beat that steadily evolves into a dark swirl of chanting, foot-stomps and iron percussion, closing with Abdula’s emotional question ‘How much longer must I remain small? I beg you, forgive me!’ “Dialogue maskar ko baro thaj tikno manus” describes the poets encounters with racism in a way that illustrates a spiritual resilience at once personal and collective. The accompaniment introduces Constandse’s musical trademark, the bandoneon, its haunting melody chiming down from some heavenly place while the poet begins to sing as if possessed. It is clear by now that this is a studio project but by the time we reach track 5 “Ko Limorada ka adjikerav tut” we have the entire Parne Gadje group performing a song live with Abdula and the result is magic - classic Parne Gadje instrumentation of double bass, percussion, dobro, clarinet and bandoneon with an earth-moving vocal delivery from Gjunler. Enter track 6 with it’s fat bandoneon and percussive groove, chanting and ragged electric guitar riffs in the modern Arabic sounding “Te vakerjum” and the journey is well on its way. From here we arrive at “E Loraskere grasta” that uses a live recording of band members playing Astor Piazolla on a radio in the background while the poet tells us about his dream of horses and dancers. Track 8 is a sparse and beautiful bandoneon and vocal recording where the narrator utters the fatal words ‘there is a black flower in his songs…’ Perhaps the most surprising track of all however is Alfa thaj Omega where Constandse has brilliantly transformed a poem into a folksong and invited not only the band to sing along but some guest vocalists as well. The result is a big choir sing-along spiritual “after my redemption I want to become an angel ,to become a sea, to become a mountain, to become a stone”. The album closes with the Eno-like glittering landscape of harp and deep percussion running like a clear stream to the ocean – this is of course Magjija “the poets magic”. The journey out of the Punjab has been tough but all is finally well in the world. 20 seconds later the bonus track “Etno Rock” emerges to return like a cheeky and joyous spirit – a sneak preview of things to come and more evidence of the kaleidoscope forces operating within Parne Gadje.

Artistically speaking, Bizoagor is a marriage of Gjunlers writing, Marc’s music and his bands serviceable skills but the project also contains a social angle –it aims to form a fund raising platform for the printing of school books in the Rroma language for the impoverished settlements and ghetto’s of Macedonia and former Yugoslavia. Since arriving in Holland Gjunler has devoted his life towards a better future for his people and a better understanding between non- Rroma and Rroma across Europe. Parne Gadje’s association with Gjunler and his activities goes back to before their first release and will continue into the future.

Go to www.roma-emancipatie.org for more information about Gjunler Abdula and his political activities.