Wiejski Dżez

The Malisz family hail from Męcina Mała, a small village in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains near the Slovakian border. They're the 2Fast 2Furious crew of wild Polish traditional songs and tunes, and this is a welcome follow-up to 2015's Mazurki Niepojęte (Inconceivable Mazurkas, a Top of the World in #112). The patriarch, Jan, builds violins, hurdy-gurdys, nyckelharpas, pipes and more in his workshop, plays cello, hurdy-gurdy and accordion, and his children Zuzanna and Kacper play the baraban (drum) and fiddle respectively – both instruments having been in the Malisz family for generations. Kacper's furiously emotional mastery of the fiddle is wondrous throughout, and both Jan's accordion and Zuzanna's voice excel, the latter's bare naked voice on the opening track, ‘Zawiśloczek’, penetrating right through the song's strange, concentrated heart.

Wiejski Dżez (Village Jazz) is a music rooted in vanishing traditions, reconnecting the here-andnow with the going, going, gone. It's the fire of their improvisations that makes this music of tradition as relevant and contemporary as a broadband connection. Wiejski Dżez is their response against the sprawl of mass culture over smaller, local cultures. By reaching into the past with the vitality of the present, the Malisz family deliver another powerful and rich set.