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A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble
A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble
[Leaf Label; 2007]
Rating: 7.3

There's a twinkle of lore in A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangár Ensemble, the limited edition, eight-track EP that follows A Hawk and a Hacksaw's best album to date, last year's The Way the Wind Blows. As the band puts it, they "walked into a music store in Budapest, Hungary and walked out with a score of four collaborators versed not only in Hungarian folk, but also...jazz and minimalism." Béla Ágoston, Zsolt Kürtösi, Ferenc Kovács, and Balázs Unger became the ad hoc Hun Hangár Ensemble, sharing their ancestral repertoire with Hacksaw's Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost and allowing the two younger musicians to add their own arrangements and ideas. Such obvious cultural immersion may sound disingenuous or self-serving, but it works here and on the accompanying tour diary DVD, finally allowing A Hawk and a Hacksaw the chance to bloom amid a parcel of the folk heritage from which they've long drawn.

A Hawk and a Hacksaw's growth has always been collaboration-dependent, so this EP, which takes the group's interest in Eastern European folk to more traditionally rooted depth, comes as little surprise. It actually feels natural in a reverse sort of way: The band's eponymous debut was all Barnes, the former Neutral Milk Hotel and Bright Eyes drummer. It was a hodgepodge of American and Eastern European folk-- parlor pianos, singing accordions, generous rhythms and rooster calls-- plied beneath experimentation with tape manipulation, vocal effects, and found sounds like telephone bells. Barnes had gone peripatetic by the second album, Darkness at Noon, dividing his time between his native New Mexico, England and Prague, picking up motifs and players along the way. Violinist and pianist Heather Trost was the one that stuck, joining Barnes for Darkness and The Way The Wind Blows. Those sessions somewhat foreshadowed the work with the Hun Hangár Ensemble, as Barnes traveled to the Romanian countryside to work with folk group Fanfare Ciocarlia. They accompanied Zach Condon on Beirut's Gulag Orkestar, too, and, though they went largely unrecognized for it, it was an indication that A Hawk and a Hacksaw was chipping back towards its source.

This latest collaboration excels in large part because it never tries to shoehorn a mood or sound into the pieces: It flows well, rocking back and forth between vibrant, danceable movements and somber, turgid instrumental numbers. The set's two horas-- a diverse class of Eastern European dances often associated with weddings-- reflect those poles. "Romanian Hora and Bulgar", recorded live last year, is spry, bells splashing out over the accordion's loping rhythm. Its second half is all frenzy, though, a heavy, exuberant, violin-led jump dashing to the audience's delight. But "Oriental Hora" shoots the same cadence through with a thick air of sobriety, a violin and viola doubling the melody until the rest of the band-- tuba, accordion, bouzouki, ukulele and Barnes' glockenspiel and steady foot percussion-- joins.

"Oriental Hora" is one of the EP's rare moments featuring more than a handful of instruments. Despite a core of six musicians and contributors including Zach Condon, the EP rarely attempts to impress with bulk sound or flashy parts. The best work here emphasizes quality not quantity, like the opening Trost composition, "Kiraly Siratás", a duet for bowed strings and the dulcimer-like cymbalom. The traditional Hungarian melodies of "Dudanotak" are played on the bagpipe by Ágoston, but Barnes lends a cantering boom-bap beat that's exuberant and charming. This music is older than both musicians, but in these hands it's got renewed swagger. Coming out of these spectacular sessions, it's more than reasonable to expect the same sort of reinvigorated vibrancy from A Hawk and a Hacksaw in the future.

-Grayson Currin, September 05, 2007