In Ukrainian-Canadian music news: The Bratko Twins' Kolomayka's on Fire is super great and I may have just won a copy on a certain internet auction site. Thanks as always to POLKADONDB for bringing it:
Bio copied from the YouTube page:
This band originated from the Winnipegosis Mb area. The twins started their music career at a very young age playing home made violin and cymbaly. As they grew older their sister bought them a violin and a brother in law made them cymbaly.They were part of a large family of 13 children, money was scarce in the 1930's playing weddings and dances was a valuable source of income for the family. Being identical twins made them a fascinating novelty. People traveled long distances by horse and buggy to see them play. Later in life as children and farming took priority they played less frequently, but music was always in the home. Each twin had one son and as they grew older they too joined the band one on accordion and the other on guitar, we now had a 4 piece band. This however did not last long as the youngsters soon moved away making their own way in the world. These two recordings were made in Winnipeg with very little or no rehearsal, tunes were picked and played at random.We recorded about 2 hours of music and out of those tunes 2 LP's were released
They play with absolute abandon, like they're compressing their entire lives into a 2-hour recording session. They do that thing that I wish I had the music theory chops to explain where they play minor chord melodies on top of major chords or vice versa (a trick I blatantly stole on my most recent album), but they take it to the next level - intentionally or unintentionally, I'm not sure ("very little or no rehearsal"), but it's totally spellbinding.
