Consumer Guide Album

Shukar Collective: Urban Gypsy [Riverboat, 2005]
Three Roma traditionalists aged 24 ("voices and primitive percussions"), 38 (lead singer, strikes barrel with stones or booted foot), and 62 (spoons player and singer, emulates Louis Armstrong) join five habitués of Bucharest's electronica underground in an ethno-techno that sounds mighty real as long as it doesn't overdo the techno. Ululating or speed-chanting, uttering words or sounds, vocalist Napoleon is the main dish. The enhanced beats are spice. A-