Félix Lajkó - "Etno Camp". What kind of drums are these? A racket of drums. What kind of horns? A tuba. What kind of fiddle? A firestarter, a sparkspitter, a flint, a tinderbox, a live flame. Lajkó Félix and his band play for fourteen minutes and while at first they are sustained by surprise - the forthright beauty of the theme, the thrill of the harmony, the brownbottle brassworks, the rattle-thump of drums, the glimmering-glong of dulcimer, - soon these things fall away and there's just the sustained marvel of their performances, their spirits, the way their heels kick up fireflies and their instruments are generators. Fire, flame everywhere - flashing in the dusk and the dark, setting the heavy velvet curtains alight. People talk of eastern European music, of hungarian folk music, of gypsy music - they talk about it in hallowed tones, like it's always brilliant, always moving, always great. It's not. But this is. It's wounded and joyous, it's startling and unflinching. It's breathless, guys, grounded in dance but doing other things too - a moment that recalls a Bach violin sonata, another where Lajkó shreds his violin to pieces (and then makes it whole again). Round and round it goes - and how do you dance? No line-dancing here, no rehearsed moves. You stomp and shove and reel and gasp and take your partner in your whole arms (not just by the hands, not lightly round the waist: with your whole arms), and you kiss her him them on the lips, sudden and fierce, so hard that your teeth click together and in the hall they spark. A white spark in every mouth, sweat down every back, shoes that are pieces of leather tied together with thread. A band on the stage that squeezes ten years of life into fourteen minutes of feeling.

Like I said: Yugoslavian born, mostly based in Budapest. He goes through labels like he goes through violin strings. The owner of a record shop in Pest told us about how they played a big gig and the power went out and the band kept going, for an hour, more. The light had to come from somewhere.

[more info (I cannot find an online source for this cd.)]

Christian Kjellvander - "Alleluia". It's easy for a man with an acoustic guitar to record a warm song. "Alleluia" isn't just warm - it's at first the easiest sort of warm. The way Kjellvander emphasises the beginning of each line, withdraws toward the end. The way his voice is only slightly burred, only slightly twanged, the way it recalls Damien Jurado and Nebraska-era Bruce Springsteen. So the reason I love this song isn't its warmth: such warmth is almost effortlessly achieved. The reason I love it is the little distance it travels in the chorus. A chill comes to the room, suddenly. Something strange and icy, but still sweet. A spectral voice, theremin, prayer. Recalling Leonard Cohen not only in the lyric - but in the moment where Kjellvander submits to the immanent. It's a song that acknowledges something bigger than a song.

[more info / buy Cowboys In Scandinavia: The New Folk Sounds From Northern Europe]

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Good Weather for Airstrikes has done something beautiful and absurd, writing up his 65 favourite music videos of 2005. He's having some problems with hosting, but essentially all but 2 of the videos are also available to download. Remarkable.

Said the Gramophone recently wrote about Peter Case's track on the new John Fahey tribute. In some pleasing symmetry, Songs:Illinois has a few songs from the upcoming Peter Case tribute album.

Oh, and any Scots who have missed it: It seems Silver Jews will be playing Edinburgh and Glasgow as part of Triptych in April. (Also London.) Yee-haw!