Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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Super Taranta! is the fourth album by gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello released on the July 10, 2007 on SideOneDummy records. This album was #14 on Rolling Stone's list of the Top 50 Albums of 2007. "Ultimate" was #82 on Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Best Songs of 2007.

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Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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Gogol Bordello is a group that will never slow down. Album after album, show after show, Eugene Hütz and his group of enthusiastic, disheveled gypsies continue to make fantastically inventive, provocative, smart, raucous music that refuses to be categorized or confined. But Gogol Bordello isn't trying to separate itself from the crowd in order to limit its audience, to attract only a select group of people; instead, their inclusion of so many different musical forms – besides gypsy, there's also dub, punk, flamenco, Italian folk, and reggae on Super Taranta! – only serves to broaden their allure, to give them a kind of universal appeal that transgresses geographic and cultural boundaries. It's the pure form, rather than the homogenized, that's stifling and limited. "I wanna walk this earth like it is mine/And so is everyone in our fun-loving tribe/C'mon man, is that real so much to ask?" Hütz asks in his charming dialectic English in the song "Tribal Connection," gently prodding his listeners to move beyond themselves and their cultural restraints and to look towards a globalized society where birthplace and familial origin are only two factors of many. He pokes fun at the U.S. ("Have you ever been to American wedding?/Where is the vodka, where is marinated herring?"), but it's in a lighthearted way, from someone who's benefited from its diversity, and though he's sometimes nostalgic for home (in "Suddenly…(I Miss Carpaty)," for example) it's also clear he has an affection for the country he now lives in. The album itself is Gogol Bordello's usual mix of riotous gypsy rhythms, fast string and accordion work, and loud guitars, but there's also a melodiousness here that comes out more strongly than on the band's previous albums, an underlying darkness that hints at the problems in the world without succumbing to them. "I can't go on, I will go on" Hütz repeats over and over in "Forces of Victory," the tension in his voice and the music working together to express the struggle holding him, and all people, back. This is what he's best at, actually, his ability to convey the common human experience, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or even language. Hütz, like every great vocalist – and he is one, although not in the traditional sense – doesn't rely on only the safety net of words to communicate his message, so even when he sings in Ukrainian or English or whatever else, his intent, his ideas, his passion (and needless to say those of the band, who combine rustic folk progressions with modern punk stylings seamlessly) is always comprehensible. Super Taranta! is the culmination of superb musicianship, endless energy, and an inborn sense of fun and a dedication to progression and innovation, and if that's not something to celebrate and dance to, it's hard to know what is.

Review by Marisa Brown, Allmusic.com

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Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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Combining elements of punk, Gypsy music, and Brecht-ian cabaret, Gogol Bordello tell the story of New York's immigrant diaspora through debauchery, humor, and surreal costumes. Leader and singer Eugene Hütz's taste in music was spun out of black market tapes of the Birthday Party and Einstürzande Neubauten in his native Ukraine. After being evacuated to western Ukraine in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster, Hütz became enamored of the mystical, outsider qualities of Gypsy music. Living as a refugee in Poland, Hungary, Austria, and Italy before moving to the United States in 1993, he experienced life as an outsider himself. After arriving in New York, he teamed up with guitarist Vlad Solofar and squeezebox player Sasha Kazatchkoff. American Eliot Fergusen added a strong rock sound on the drums and the band was also augmented by Sergey Rjabtzev on fiddle, a former theater director from Moscow whose past experience would prove helpful in the future in crafting Gogol Bordello's bizarre stage shows (like one that tells the story of super-powered immigrant Ukrainian vampires).

The group's early gigs involved playing straight Gypsy music at Russian weddings, but their music soon evolved into the hyper-kinetic explosions that earned them a solid following among New York's downtown hipsters. The band issued a single in 1999 entitled When the Trickster Comes A-Pokin', quickly followed by their debut full-length, Voi-La Intruder, which was produced by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds drummer Jim Sclavunos. Solofar and Kazatchkoff were replaced by accordionist Yuri Lemeshev, who hails from the Russian island of Sakhalin, and two Israelis, guitarist Oren Kaplan and saxophonist Ori Kaplan, who despite their similar names aren't related. Hütz helped bolster the band's popularity by becoming somewhat of a celebrity in the downtown scene, in part fueled by his Thursday night DJ gigs at Bulgarian club/restaurant/bar Mehanata, where he played Ukrainian, Gypsy, rai, and flamenco music for a crowd of artists, models, Ukrainians, Russians, Gypsies, and Bulgarians with tendencies toward exuberant dancing and smashing plates.

In the spring of 2002, Gogol Bordello embarked on a European tour and performed as part of the Whitney Biennial, bringing their music to a whole new audience. Voi-La Intruder came out around that same time, followed that fall by another album, Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony. The East Infection EP came out in March 2005 before Gogol Bordello made their Side One Dummy debut that August with the aptly titled Gypsy Punks. By this point, though the band's cast no longer included Ori Kaplan, it did boast bassist Rea Mochiach and dancers/percussionists Pam Racine and Elizabeth Sun. Aside from leading the band, Hütz also lent his hand to acting when he was cast as Alex in 2005's Everything Is Illuminated (based on the critically acclaimed book) after Gogol Bordello attracted the attention of the film's producer. The bandmembers soon got to work on their next album, however, switching to bass player Tommy Gobena and utilizing the talents of producer Victor Van Vugt to help them craft their fourth full-length, Super Taranta! Wildly praised by critics, who pasted the album all over their year-end lists, Super Taranta! (as well as the band's increasingly physical live shows) made them indie rock heroes. Live from Axis Mundi was released in 2009, followed by the group's Rick Rubin-produced fifth studio offering, Transcontinental Hustle in 2010.

Biography by Stacia Proefrock, Allmusic.com

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Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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Gogol Bordello - Super Taranta! (2007)

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