Search - Stian Carstensen :: Farmers Market

Farmers Market presents another stellar opportunity to familiarize yourself with Stefan Winter's post-JMT label, Winter & Winter. A Norwegian and Bulgarian quintet, Farmers Market picks up music from all over the map and plays it with a part-Balkan, part-jazz sensibility that's ultimately uncategorizable. The entire session is packed with cameos and guest spots from Bulgarian musicians and singers, each of whom changes things ever so slightly (or dramatically) for each track. A vocal choir reminiscent in tone of the Bulgarian Women's Choir sings the brief "Young Girl Made a Crown of Forest Flowers," and for a spell, Farmers Market feels like a forward-looking set of genre-bending Bulgarian music made in a sometimes folkier, sometimes hipper frame than much of the Downtown New York Balkan stuff. Then guitarist and accordionist Stian Carstensen takes the band in another, grittier direction with "Les Paul, More John" and along a more traditional dance-oriented trail with "Jog Trot" and the fusion-tinged "Jabber." Bulgarian saxophonist Trifon Trifonov gives all the horn lines a clipped, quick-cutting feel that's almost staccato, a nice touch especially on the urban-funky "Ornamental Boogie." It's fun, pristinely recorded music footed in the Balkans, quick-cutting jazz, and the kind of catholic approach that's made Winter & Winter such a distinctive record label. --Andrew Bartlett