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We live in a world obsessed by surface – perhaps that is
why Mikelangelo and his Black Sea Gentlemen are such a welcome
feature on our musical landscape. They are brave enough to confront
us with puzzles – layer after layer of them. Where are they
from? What is their history? How did they carry the bleak existentialism
of Paris to Australia , via the Balkans? And that music –
so hauntingly evocative – but from where? It speaks to us
of middle Europe, the southern Russias, and yet has evolved far
beyond that – are we, nervously, entering a post-modern
world here, where these rootless buccaneers reflect on their new
lives in the Antipodes?
On their new album Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen take
us on a journey that is geographical, cultural, philosophical,
and even, dare I say, ironic. It’s an album of songs all
beautiful in their own right, but made more so by the shadows
of meaning which they cast upon each other. It’s invidious
to pick out individual numbers when the whole is so much more
than the sum of its parts, but we’ve all suffered A minor
Days, and have all longed for the untrammelled optimism of Set
Sail. The Great Muldavio tells us his own story in his own song,
and Mikelangelo paints a vividly exotic picture of sexual adventure
in Formidable Marinade. As if that’s not enough, we can
also enjoy the Devil coming to town, in a lyric where film noir
becomes sound. Get listening. The Gipsy Kings are dead, long live
these new gipsy kings.
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