>The Edge of Heaven
>Disko Partizani
>Bucovina Club 1
>Bucovina Club 2
OMFO
>Transbalkan Express
>We Are the Shepherds
Senor Coconut
>Around the World
>Presents Coconut FM
>Yellow Fever
Baile Funk
>Baile 1
>Baile 2
Balkan Beat Box
Boom Pam
Binder Krieglstein
Vesna A New One
Amsterdam Klezmer Band
O.M.F.O.
Trans Balkan Express
Cat.-No.: AYCD 02
Ladies and gentlemen: All on board the Trans Balkan Express! Make sure you are seated; you'll enjoy a big trip...
While Kraftwerk was chugging on their train through pre 1989 Europe, O.M.F.O. travels from the West to the East, from Amsterdam via Berlin to the hinterlands of the EU, the Carpates, the Black Sea right into the front garden of Asia. While crashing frontiers, bridging gaps, building connections, he carries in his luggage Jamaican dub techniques and electronic equipment, with which O.M.F.O. elegantly blends the musical spice of the South Eastern European provinces with the club culture of the West.
Our Man From Odessa (O.M.F.O.) is a border crosser himself. Raised in the harbour town of Odessa (Ukraine), German Popov first studied radio communication. In 1989 he immigrated to Amsterdam to intensify his musical formation. At first he engaged himself in various musical projects. Popov is an ardent collector of traditional music instruments from different parts of the world, especially from former Soviet republics and their satellite states, and knows how to play them all. Moreover he is a highly skilled overtone singer. Consequently, he was invited to play and sing with many bands and musicians around the Amsterdam circuit. 1994 German released on Oreade Music his first album "Isiric". Shortly after he started Sputnik, a band solely consisting of Russian emigrants, for which he wrote music, earning a few guilders. In the meantime, German Popov was travelling the world as a DJ and worked as a furniture salesman, a model, a travel guide and built instruments. As O.M.F.O. he released various 12" and 7" singles on Kidnap records, but most of all on his Solaris-Project which had an exotic, electronic Easy Listening sound. Later he joined the world famous female throat singer Sainkho from Southern Sibiria, with which he collaborated on various albums, as well as an instrumentalist on tour.
And now German Popov presents with "Trans Balkan Express" fourteen new tracks in an intercultural transition modus on Berlin's Essay Recordings. The album features music between the "East" and the "West", between space and a Balkan wedding, speeded up by electronic sound engineering, cooled by a relaxed versatility, happily ignoring musical boundaries of any kind. "Trans Balkan Express" is where modernism dances with traditions, the "old" Europe flows into the "new". On the beautiful Trans Balkan trip, Popov, who only wears custom-made-suits, exposes many of his talents and passions: Laptop producing, dub reggae, flutes and string instruments from his exotic collection, as well as his affinity for cosmonautic lyricism and psycho active Absinth.
Let's all get on board and marvel, which exciting new sounds, revolutionary musical combinations there are to explore between the occident and the tundra. And let O.M.F.O. be our guide.
