Mukka

If you can get a bunch of people who’ve never met, to join hands and dance themselves crazy in a circle – in London, you can do it anywhere. And Mukka have done it everywhere from Glastonbury Festival to the Queen’s Concert at Buckingham Palace.Mukka's extraordinarily charismatic Romanian singer Dana Codorean-Berciu brings the deepest melancholy in Transylvanian ballads of loss and yearning, only to swoop to the other extreme with a frenetic dance tune with wild instrumentals. Her songs spring from the heart of Transylvanian village life and yet convey such depth of feeling and humour that they transcend boundaries of place and language. One of her songs begins with the verse: "My darling, My darling! Last summer you were such a shy boy. This summer you learned how to make cheese and sometimes… How to make love. But wait, just you wait, I am coming now, riding my black stallion!"Mukka played to a crowd of 5000 at the Trafalgar Square Romany Festival, and supporting "The Beat" at Glastonbury Festival. They also made appearances at Coin St Romanian Festival, Spraoi in Waterford Ireland, Meltdown Festival, Refugee Week, The South Bank's Purcell Room, The Barbican and Art Centres throughout the UK. The band have royal credentials: they have played to the Sheikh of Al' Ain in The United Arab Emirates, The Sultana Of Oman at her UK residence in Surrey, and at the Queen's Jubilee Concerts at Buckingham Palace.The late John Peel once described them as "the sensation of Glastonbury" and invited them to record a John Peel Session, opening up their music to a whole new audience. Mukka's third CD "Life, Life!" combines Dana's Transylvanian ballads with a strong contemporary feel and dancy rhythmic drive. Mukka have re-invented the Romanian doina, a traditional song form in free improvisational style, imbuing it with a fresh rhythmic backing which earned them a credit in Songlines magazine as "the doyens of doina." The album was described as "high-voltage, eminently danceable… clearly has 'FUN' stamped all over it....hey, this is a party!"The band brings together eminent musicians from former Yugoslavia, Russia and Romania, with fresh UK talent from Scottish, Celtic and Jazz backgrounds, and features violins, accordion, flute, traditional percussion and a modern rhythm section. The result is a most exciting example of highly original music, which spans east and west and where new compositions sit alongside reworkings of traditional tunes sourced from all over the Balkans and the Middle East."Gypsy, Klezmer, Eastern European and Middle-Eastern music imbued with jazzy swing and punky energy… with lots of high-speed instrumentals (featuring the twin-turboed fiddle assault of Frank Biddulph and Kate Hands), plus the deep Romanian blues singer Dana" fRoots magazine"A small corner of Soho exploded around midnight last night as Dana Cordorean-Berciu, a Romanian diva with a line in angst-filled doina ballads provided stark counterpoint to the original but out-there instrumentals being wielded with furious abandon". Evening StandardMukka have toured the French Alps, The Middle East and Eastern Europe. Besides doing a John Peel session, they have played on BBC London's Charlie Gillett’s show, on BBC World Service’s "Outlook" and "The Ticket" and were interviewed on TV by Sacha Baron Cohen (AKA Ali G).