1:00 am
Goran Bregović—Alkohol: Sljivovica & Champagne (2009)
The invisible man stumbles a bit as he walks, the alcohol making him far less aware of his invisible feet than he usually is. After passing under a railroad bridge and a viaduct he notices that the neighborhood has changed subtly. No longer do trash and people pushing shopping carts dominate the streets, instead they have been replaced by a decidedly residential vibe. Brownstones line the streets here, the yellow light of domestic life glowing in their windows. The sweet smell of flowering trees hangs thick in the night air.
Up ahead he hears the sound of brass instruments being played at a frantic pace. On closer inspection he discovers a vacant lot strung with lights and converted into a garden which is filled with tables and chairs and a group of people dancing to beautiful Balkan music. At first he sits at a table and simply watches them, but before long he is overcome by a powerful urge to dance and he rushes out into the middle of the crowd, jumping and spinning and confusing the hell out of everyone he bumps into.
This is the perfect party album. Listening to it you can imagine drunk people grabbing the microphone from each other or grabbing a partner and twirling sloppily around the dancefloor. I'm sure the atmosphere of drunken revelry it evokes is no accident, it is called
Alkohol after all. The tempos—with the exception of the slower track "Ruzica" in the middle of the album—are fairly upbeat across the board, bass horns oompah-ing enthusiastically left and right. The higher register horns laugh and weep with gusto in a way that is reminiscent of both klezmer and mariachi music. The vocals change a great deal from track to track as if, as previously mentioned, different people keep grabbing the microphone. The end result is an album that is thoroughly Balkan and utterly global, with noticeable links to everything from mariachi to bhangra to ska to Carnival and Mardi Gras music, all of it partying hard and reeking of booze.
Once he is thoroughly exhausted and sweaty as hell he staggers out of the crowd and swipes a bottle of champaign on his way out of the garden. One utterly blitzed guest, nearly passed out at a table, is surprised to see the bottle go floating away down the street, occasionally tilting upside down to drain its contents into an invisible throat.