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// Clejani Express
© D.R.
A Devla
While people are understandably drooling over the latest release by the Fanfare Ciocarlia, Queens and Kings, my heart has been skipping a beat thanks to a music bombshell called A Devla, translated simply as “Oh God!”. It is by a group which centres its music on the superb vocals of Viorica and the compositional acumen of Ionitsa. This transfuge from Taraf de Haïdouks has turned his back on the international success this “Band of Outlaws” has enjoyed over the past decade. The accordionist preferred to conquer the hearts of his fellow-countrymen with what the sleeve-notes describe as “the urbanisation of music”. They did this by leaving their gypsy village of Clejani in the south of Romania and taking on the country’s capital Bucharest.
The result has been spectacular. Clejani Express and its whirlwind of cymbalon, accordion, percussions, violins, wind instruments and female voice has developed a cult following. Much of this is down to the remarkable singing of Viorica. She adds the ingredient so lacking with the rough-and-ready groups that have been exported to the West. “God gave me a voice, for which I am grateful,” says Viorica in the album notes, written by executive producer Christos Scholzakis. She insists, however, that she could never have used it beyond her wedding day if her husband had not been a musician, thus touching on the prevailing streak of machismo in her community.
“Purity is always a misleading ideal,” wrote specialist Robert Christgau last year, in reference to Roma music. With A Devla, Clejani Express have ‘dirtied up’ sounds that have travelled from India since around 800 AD that bit more. This is thanks to its syncretic adaptation of modern urban beats in songs like “Drogostea de la Clejani”, as well as the regenerating changes of rhythm in “Um Gram de Iubire”. But this is all enhanced by the hot-blooded and dynamic vocals of Viorica, who has the rare ability to adapt her voice to any arrangement her husband Ionitsa throws at her. She is plaintive in “Pelin Beau”, festive in the joyous finale “La Bolintinu Din Vale”, moving in “Bulgaras de Gheata Rece” and vivacious in the album’s best tune “Cucu Si Corbu”.
“We eat, sleep, live and play music together,” she explains, “Which is not always easy…Our music has its roots in the joy and sorrow in our soul.” This ambiguous reality is underlined in the title track, a gypsy prayer that describes the despair of a woman forced to leave her family and earn the money that will allow them to survive.
“O God, I can’t sing anymore
It hurts to leave my children
I need money for bread
While at home pain is awaiting me.”
Many of the songs seem to hark back to the troubled past full of persecution and injustice. “Cucu si Corbu”, or “The cuckoo and the raven” is a fable that reflects these hardships, with animals adopting postures much like the fables by Jean de La Fontaine. Yet, there is no pathos in Viorica’s vocals and, appropriately, she ends with a celebratory and rousing song inviting listeners to “Santo sus picioru!”, or “lift (their) feet”, and forget their everyday concerns. The atmosphere is infectious. According to the following description of a private concert in Bucharest by Scholzakis, it is even more so live: “They were flying on clouds at a speed at which they could no longer see themselves in a mirror, but they constantly remained in a lively exchange with their audience.”
At times, the instrumental harmony orchestrated by Ionitsa is uneven, particularly in “Lume, Lume” and “A Devla”. Even these songs, however, remain messily melodic and joyously anarchic. There is no reason why Clejani Express should confine their driving dissonances to the Romanian borders. Their urbanisation of gypsy music could clearly seduce audiences worldwide.
May 2007
Daniel Brown
// ALSO
- Erik Marchand and the Balkaniks « Pruna »
- Muse
- Studio Cameroon
- New Awards for World Music
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- Paranoia and passion: Almodovar’s movie music
- Oumou Sangare, Oumou Sangare // The Malian songbird returns
- Khaled, Liberté
- Tony Allen, Afrobeat ace
// ALL CLEJANI EXPRESS'S REVIEWS
A Devla
09/05/2007
// DISCOGRAPHY
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A Devla (Album)// LINKS
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