Klezmer, Polka, Czardas, classic rock and Latin music, recorded across four albums. A fourth album is on the way, following each record down a different musical thread.
Subtitled 'Slavic Music Collected in the Midwest performed by California Surfer Gypsy Punk Rockers', the debut gathers the band's early East European material and pushes it through a surf-punk attack.
2005
Fighting for Harmony
A search for Byzantine roots in dance music from Southern California and Tijuana, tracing shared melodic threads across the border.
2010
Cafe Bego
Cafe Bego celebrates Flamenco influences, bringing guitar-driven rhythm and handclap phrasing into the band's Eastern European and Latin mix.
A fourth album is on the way, continuing the series.
Jeff Pekarek, 2010
Panamerican Shanty
Traditional sea shanties and film-noire-inspired originals tell the story of the Nakai Nakai, a fabled whale-tooth scrimshaw piece.
Poetry and narration, partly in Spanish, give the perspectives of a tango dancer, a late-night disc jockey, a private eye, and various mariners. A chorus of rum-lit sailors provides abstract commentary between the stories.
Before there was worldbeat. Before the word multicultural was coined to describe 87.4% of the music you now hear, before eclectic mix became the byline of any band that might have a bouzouki in tow, there were the Electrocarpathians.— The Troubadour magazine