 |
| Gogol Bordello |
July 14, 2013 01:00 AM
By Scott McLennan
Special to The Journal
"That makes me think of someone in a tuxedo and cocktail in hand,” Hütz says when reached in Norway where he was on tour with his band Gogol Bordello.
As anyone who has ever seen Gogol Bordello knows, Hütz is more of a shirtless and jug-of-wine kind of guy. But when it comes to music, Hütz is a globetrotter, pouring European and Latin folk styles into a percolating mix that smacks of punk audacity even as it revels in Gypsy rhythms.
Gogol Bordello is set to release its sixth studio album “Pura Vida Conspiracy” on July 23 and will be at Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel just ahead of that on July 21.
Hütz, who was born in Kiev and moved to the U.S. in 1991, has been at the center of Gogol Bordello since its start in 1999 when a bunch of immigrant musicians banded together in Brooklyn. The group’s membership has been evolving, though it has kept a focus on matching multiethnic roots with contemporary edge.
Around the time Gogol Bordello made its previous album, “Trans-Continental Hustle,” Hütz moved to Brazil, but it wasn’t until “Pura Vida Conspiracy” that the dynamics of the change really set in.
“I think in general, the last few years as a band have been about extracting wisdom out of psychodrama. The touring cliché of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll applied,” Hütz says. “I called the last record ‘Trans-Continental Hustle’ because it encapsulated the endless departures and arrivals and drunken goodbyes.”
While at first worried that having the band members scattered around the world would hurt Gogol Bordello, Hütz says that quite the opposite happened.
“Not being in the same neighborhood extracted the unifying qualities of the band. This album feels like dancing around the fire together,” Hütz says. “Before, I think people saw a songwriter with a band. But this is a band, and that’s a precious feeling to acquire, that feeling of dancing around the fire. You can’t pay for that. It happens by being in the trenches together.”
That feeling translated into songs on “Pura Vida Conspiracy” that seemingly conjure a modern folklore that blends rustic storytelling with contemporary commentary. The songs range from the uplifting “Malandrino” and “We Rise Again” to the cautionary “The Way You Name Your Ship” and “John the Conqueror.”
Gogol Bordello is still a sprawling affair of eight members with accordion and violin spicing the material, which typically gallops in a manner befitting the band’s frenetic live shows. But “Pura Vida Conspiracy” does offer a bit more restraint than previous Gogol blowouts.
“Every record we make is quite different from the one that comes before it,” Hütz says. “The big moment on this one was realizing that great artistic truth that the whole world knows that less is more. We were very close to proving the opposite. For a while we looked like we would be successful with more is more.”
Hütz says that studying Eastern philosophy led him to the fresh attitude with the band. And Hütz is careful to not let audience expectations steer the group.
“When you’re on stage, you’re subject to people projecting what they think of you. You can oblige that and let them live out their fantasies, or you can develop authentically,” Hütz says, adding that he noticed the problem after being in the films “Everything Is Illuminated” and “Filth and Wisdom.” “That’s why I left movies. I didn’t want to be typecast as the crazy Russian guy.”
But certainly there are forces in the entertainment business telling Hütz that duplicating successful formulas is the way to go. And he says that is true, there are those people who would be happy if Gogol Bordello just kept re-making its breakthrough “Gypsy Punks” record.
“That’s what kung fu is for,” he says.
Scott McLennan can be reached at smclennan1010@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter ScottMcLennan1.
No comments:
Post a Comment