Once every few years, a truly unique role comes along to fill a gap that nobody cared enough about to be filled before. Boban Marković fills two of these roles, both by making a living as “the greatest trumpeter to emerge from the Balkans” and by being Serbia’s only trumpet player probably to ever leave the Balkans. If that alone turns your furrowed brow of confusion into one of feigned interest — and if you find the star-studded sound system of Vladicin Han vaguely enticing, or alternatively are part of a loathsome minority of music-lovers who ceaselessly, ravenously, and ironically consume counter-culture in an ongoing attempt to appropriate everything they can as fashion or attitude in a meaningless race to remain current — then The Boban Marković Orchestra is probably for you!
The Boban Marković Orchestra have undoubtedly rekindled an interest in Eastern European music since performing in several films as well as onstage at the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival. But even with success undertow, they stumble when employing the instrumental equation of infinite brass + infinite genre combinations. Instead, Go Marko Go! sounds like the long-lost mother of all supermarket music, balancing the jaunty and upbeat with fairly standard little brass pieces. These range from the Gypsy brass-cum-1950s Americana of “Dunje” to the Gypsy brass-cum-’70s theme song funk of “Dzumbus Funk” to the Gypsy brass-cum-Spaghetti Western of “Bumanara.” The result is a blend of danceabley benign Eastern European experiments.
But if there’s anything more baffling than the advent of jazz-funk fusion, it’s the advent of its mutant, transcontinental cousin, flugelhorn-Gypsy-jazz-funk. This is one of those bizarre finds where it's difficult to actually imagine the appropriate time to ever listen to this album outside of a Serbian mobile disco that improbably continues to trade despite seeming to never have any customers, and which is therefore most likely just a money-laundering operation for the Bratva. However, Boban cater to too specific an audience for this to matter to their fans.
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