Following the success of their debut Mastika (1992), SLOBO HORO finally released the long-awaited second album in October 1994. Esma (Rockadillo Records ZENCD 2041 / In Germany EXIL 5519) is a natural progression for the band. They have found more great and seldom heard gypsy songs from the Balkan region and made them truly their own.

In less troubled times, we would talk about SLOBO HORO capturing the true essence of the fierce Balkan spirit. Or the fierce Turkish spirit. But things being as they are, we think we'd better emphasize that SLOBO HORO is about 10-piece Finnish group of ethnic music experts whose horizons are much wider than would appear.

We mean, don't you too think that Bo Diddley is pretty ethnic and that it really isn't that surprising that SLOBO HORO would use that familiar "six-bits-and-a-haircut" shuffle as the irresistible hook on the opening track on their brand new second album Esma? After saying that, we must confess that we haven't asked SLOBO HORO whether they did add that nice touch or whether it was actually the idea of the song's original composer Sulejman Ramadan Ramce, but anyway, it really is a captivating track that again proves the playful mastery of SLOBO HORO. There are many other questions we could have asked before releasing this follow-up to SLOBO HORO's 1992 debut Mastika, but all of us have been much too busy consolidating the present success of this ten-year-old group.

Mastika was released in Finland in October 1992 and in the rest of Scandinavia, as well as Germany and Switzerland in March 1993. Small quantities of export copies have later found their way to the UK, the U.S.A and Japan. In June 1993 a remix CD single My Gipsy Beauty was released together with an accompanying video. In June 1993 SLOBO HORO headlined at Fiesta festival in Pärnu, Estonia and in August the band played its first Continental shows in Amsterdam and at Musikfest am Ring in Cologne. The feedback was so positive that SLOBO HORO was invited to play at the Worldwide Music Days in Berlin in November. In 1994 SLOBO HORO has already played Les Eurofolies festival in Paris as well as the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. These shows were also recorderd for major national radio stations.

When Mastika came out, the band name SLOBO HORO was the cause of some initial confusion, with a few sensitive broadcasters connecting the name with the infamous nationalist leader of the Serbs. Therefore,

1. The name derives from a sketch in a Finnish television comedy show in the early Eighties.
2. It is not known what the authors of that sketch had in mind or what their acquaintance to Slavic languages was when they created that name.
3. Anyway, the first part may be derived from the South Slavic word sloboda `freedom', and the second part from the fact that the band specializes in the music of the "horo" (< Greek khoreio 'to dance') dance region - thus the name can be liberally translated as "Free Dance", or even "Free Choreography".

Slobo Horo: Heikki Autio - accordion, backing vocals / Risto Blomster - bass guitar, guitars, percussion, backing vocals / Timo Kaasinen - guitars / Jouni Kurki - darbukas / Jukka-Pekka Kärkkäinen, : guitars / Mika Lahtinen - violin / Jarkko Niemi - lead vocals, electric guitar, violin / Jukka-Pekka Nieminen - bass guitar / Leeni Pukkinen - lead vocals / Mikko Vanhanen - clarinet, saxophone, zil, backing vocals

Not for nothing have they spent endless years in honing their craft not only in a dusty rehearsal room appropriated from the Institute of Folklore in Tampere but sometimes even at the institute itself, making numerous snooping trips in all the Balkan countries and presenting their ever-evolving music on all kinds of stages, from large Finnish festivals to small Macedonian hotels. As in the political climate, these years have seen a definite change in the music, in their case from "state-approved" folklore to a more urban and carefree mix of many kinds of 20th century Balkan party music.

They are well aware of Western Europe's difficulties in knowing all the right dance steps, but they are confident in their belief that "everybody will have a good time, eventually", be the rhythm and language from Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Balkan gypsies or Turkey. Theirs is a fun music, but they are taking it seriously. And so will you, once you've heard Mastika, a melangé of many moods, from crunching heavy guitars to heart-rending paeans of love, from a world of contraband Marlboros, potent plum brandy and fierce dancing.