Welcome to Bregovic: The Best of Goran Bregovic

Love it

Excentric and unusal but talented.

Well done compilation. Vivat Bregovic once more !

Goran Bregovic has few peers in modern music. His eclecticism and progression from pop/rock band leader to film composer and creator of his own individualistic music call to mind such figures as Brian Eno and David Byrne but with greater oomph (and indeed oompah). This release well exemplifies the range of his music and collaborators. Who else calls his band "the Funeral and Weddings Band" and has collaborated with Iggy Pop, Scott Walker and Cesaria Evoria? At his recent concert at the Barbican, Bregovic drew on four composite groups of musicians, the Funeral and Wedding Band itself, a male sextet, a string quartet and two female Bulgarian singers. Bregovic has been accused of plagiarising gypsy music and he makes no apology for his taking of traditional Balkan elements and sculpting them into something new. When it works, it is stunning. At that concert, the invasion of the brass Funeral and Weddings Band into the string quartet's opening number was straight out of the opening scene of Luigi Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and an audacious piece of musical theatre. A recording cannot replicate that physicality and visual power but this selection from Bregovic's recent catalogue does exactly what a resume should, namely provide a representation which leaves the listener wanting more.For those who have not heard it before "Man from Reno" sung by Scott Walker for a 1993 French film "Toxic Affair" provides the implausible linkbetween the post-punk pop of "Ipak Pozelim Neko Pismo", a song byBregovic's former band Bijelo Dugme (White Button) one of the most successful groups in ex-Yugoslavia, and the haunting, sombre but spectacular "Farmer In the City" by Scott Walker which opens his 1995 masterpiece "Tilt".Bregovic's cinematic sensibility is also evident in "Rencontre" which could easily pass for a Craig Armstrong composition, while the evocative "Dreams" borrows from a wonderful traditional Macedonian song "Zajdi, Zajdi Jasno Sonce" (set, set bright sun). In rude contrast is one of Bregovic's most treasured numbers "Kalasjnikov", a drunken, energetic stomp. Imagine a knees up between Madness, Celtic Soul Brothers-era Dexys Midnight Runners and Tom Jones. With guns. It is, in the best possible way, utterly deranged.For the un-initiated, the nostalgic and the committed fan, this a compelling collection.