A riotous mash-up of almost every rootsy vibe you might encounter on a bar crawl from the Black Sea to Brixton, the debut album by South London’s Gypsy Hill has been out for a couple of months now, but it’s always worthy of a quick blast to clear the pipes. Mixing Balkan swing with Big Beat by way of strident brass, guitars, bass and rhythmic breaks both turntabled and trad, Gypsy Hill’s ‘Our Routes’ is sure to get the limbs flailing. Their punk-funk take on itinerant jazz and Eurasion folk is of similar stock to that aced by Melt Yourself Down, but Gypsy Hill’s is perhaps the more accessible collection. ‘Caciula Pa Ureche’ itself kicks in with a greasy tuba lick stalking a clatter of percussion and Eastern vocalisms, before exploding in a surge of grimy synth-bass that could blow the woofers in a pimped-up Beemer. It’s a creative piece of genre-bending by this duo, who, fleshed out by a host of instrumentalist allies, have cooked up some internationalist party grooves of the most amiable order.
Our Routes is out now.
See Gypsy Hill live:
Fri Nov 7 – Exeter Phoenix
Fri Dec 19 – London Clore Ballroom
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