A Hawk and A Hacksaw - Delivrance

  by Sarah Maybank

published: 6 / 5 / 2009

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Review

‘Accordion-shredding’? Is that a musical term ? Well, it is now. For ‘Delivrance’, A Hawk and a Hacksaw swapped their secluded New Mexico home for wild times in eastern Europe. Their musical roaming took them to Hungary, where sessions with master Budapest folk musicians the Han Hangar Ensemble compulsorily started with the downing of palinka, a potent local fruit brandy. And boy does it show. ‘Delivrance’ flashes by in a whirl of frantically syncopated percussion, rippling dulcimer, mariachi-esque brass and sawing violins. And that mach-speed accordion wizardry. The album makes no attempt at authenticity, instead melding centuries-old musical traditions from Turkey to Transylvania, from Greece to Israel, in a musical melting pot that creates an identity all of its own – and one that’s intent on good times. The frantic pace could have been tempered by dappling it with the slower, more plangent tracks that bookend the album. But really, how could anyone resist partying to a record that includes a track named ‘Vasalisa Carries A Flaming Skull Through The Forest’? Thought not. Now someone pass the palinka.

Track Listing:-

1 Foni Tu Argile
2 Kertész
3 The Man Who Sold His Beard
4 Hummingbirds
5 Raggle Taggle
6 I Am Not a Gambling Man
7 Turkiye
8 Zibiciu
9 Vasalisa Carries a Flaming Skull Through the Forest
10 Lassú
11 Digital Booklet: Délivrance

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