Ethno Port, Poznań, Poland, June 23-25

This 16th edition of Ethno Port continued to present diverse artists from around the globe, ranging from peacefully meditational to punkishly gypsy. Its customary late night Polish folk dance was absent this year, and that indigenous talent was less crucial to the weekend than usual. For instance, the new age voices and percussion of the Lower Silesia orientated Kosy were particularly bland.

On a rowdier front, the festival initiated a sequence of sets in the nearby Adam Mickiewicz Park, welcoming the general public to these virtually free admission gigs. Conjunto Papa Upa arrived from the Netherlands, their membership mostly drawn from various South American lands. The chief sounds were salsa and cumbia, but through a soft focus lens of 1970s chicha and Colombian exotica, with Farfisa and Korg keys adding retro kitsch from behind the three-man bank of timbales, bongos and congas (enthusiastic group vocals being compulsory). Stinging electric guitar and a wobbly bass shimmer completed this compulsive concoction. The band were also garbed in matching smocks, straight out of a Hollywood realisation of a Casablancan Latin club!

Then, in the Zamek castle courtyard, Zene’t Panon immediately launched into an intense dancing ritual groove, all based around voices and percussion. From Reunion Island, they were strangely lacking in the distinctive kayamb shaker-tray percussion of that region’s maloya music, until their manager brought one out towards the gig’s end. Instead, they had a big between-knees bass drum, along with three bamboo clackers, congas, and a tall, slim drum. Thunderous energy ensued, with a frenzied call-and-response between the lead vocalist and his chorus.

The courtyard was also a fitting location for evening introversion, as the Ruşan Filiztek Trio examined the softest sides of Kurdish tradition. Much of the set featured a saz and acoustic guitar duo, with vocals wafting inwards amidst generous reverb. A more ruffled, dramatic delivery emerged later, and the guitar had its own flamenco focus for a while. Filiztek also played his saz with increasing gusto, with a subtle level of amplification. Styles perched between Andalusian and Arabic, as a kanun player came out, Filiztek switching to oud, as unison themes abounded. The trio worked towards the set’s climax, drawing together a shared intensity as they shook up Kurdish, Turkish and Greek traditions.

Ndima (photo by Maciej Kaczyński)

Ndima closed out the first evening, a Congolese group of Aka pygmies who used voices, percussion and dancing, as one. They accumulated overlapping patterns, adding occasional mouth-bow resonance, presenting many different sections to showcase aspects of their tradition. On the second night, the closing courtyard act was the Stelios Petrakis Cretan Quartet, brandishing two ouds and a lute (laouto), plus an occasional bowed lyre. Their flamboyant dancer bided his time before hurtling out front, gyrating, arms spread wide and upwards, back-kicking his thighs, adding potent emphasis to certain songs, then disappearing for a resting spell. The shared vocals were mostly deep-toned, but the mood was wilder by the time of the last dance, the now-standing crowd clapping along enthusiastically.

The Stelios Petrakis Quartet (photo by Maciej Kaczyński)

The final courtyard set was by the Italian singer Maria Mazzotta, who rocked her repertoire up with booming drums and angular electric guitar. Fortunately, she was capable of bringing all this down to a subtler level for some parts of the set, even beginning to sound quite folksy. At other times, the band resorted to bad-metal bloaters, all pomp and clumsiness.

Most of Ethno Port’s acts were very impressive, as ever, but there was a small clutch of lesser talent. The absolutely awful Balaklava Blues, for instance, played outside in the park on the final day, formulating an excruciatingly tasteless mangling of bland fusion hip-hop-funk, with the merest smear of Ukrainian folk vocal input, along with an unhealthy glop of excruciating Toronto-American over-sincerity.