Cuckoo

Toronto-based Lemon Bucket Orchestra are Canada's version of Gogol Bordello and, like Eugene Hütz, it seems a good many of them are of Ukrainian extraction. This album presents a selection of Ukrainian tunes (plus several Balkan ones) in solidarity with the country. The band are 15-strong and the album is pretty high-energy, from the sousaphone parps and polyphonic vocals on the opening ‘Shchedryj Vechor’, through the high-speed fiddling of the klezmer-ish ‘Frank's Freylekh’ to the Balkan twists of ‘Khaiterma’. It's very welcome when the pace slackens for the Macedonian song ‘Zajdi Zajdi’, although this is a horribly syrupy version with drawn out vocal lines. Throughout there's very strong violin playing from Mark Marczyk. There's a punkish anarchy in the wild ‘Kiyomi Cocek’ and the closing waltz ‘Pyjemo Pyjemo’ has a catchy swing, but given the Ukrainian focus it would have been good to have more depth.