Charming Hostess * Dali Tzerni (RealAudio)
A non-love song from Pirin-Macedonia, usually sung at weaving parties. "Aren't my eyes black enough for you? Your eyes are black enough, but I don't want them."

Zabe i Babe * Sjaj Mjesece (Shine Moon) (RealAudio)
A newly composed Bosnian folk song about love. A woman tells the moon to shine on her darling to make him restless, sighing for her in his sleep.

Brave Combo * Hosa Dyna (RealAudio)
In this Polish song, a man journeys from Krakow to wed his beloved Mary against her family's wishes, and threatens to kill himself if he cannot.

Immigrant Suns * Surfin' Albania (RealAudio)
Traditional Albanian tune done surf style (in case you ever find yourself shredding the waves off the coast of Aspri-Ruga.)

Slobo Horo * Esma (RealAudio)
Slobo Horo's arrangement of a popular Rom song. "Esma, why did you leave me? I don't know what to do without you!"

Grupi Albanët * Hajde Bukuri (Come, Beauty) (RealAudio)
An Albanian love song. The singer thinks about this beautiful girl day and night. He wants her to give her love to him, because he can't live without her.

The Reptile Palace Orchestra * Godecki Cacak (RealAudio)
As every other cacak on Planet Earth is from Serbia, this one, naturally, is not. Rather, it comes from the small town of Godec, just inside Bulgaria near the main Serbian-Bulgarian border crossing at Caribrod / Dimitrovgrad.

Széki Kurva * The Stars Are Shining [Radio Edit] (RealAudio)
Hardocre techno breakbeats over Greek bouzouki sample loops and Essex-accented Serbo-Croat vocals from London's finest Gypsy Band. "Hey, my darling...that I'll be yours, well that's a lie"

Farmers Market * Gankino Horo (RealAudio)
A classic Bulgarian Kopanica, played at an equally classic thrash tempo in a minute flat.

Alexander Fedoriouk & Ensemble "Harmonia" * Geamparalele Tsambalul (RealAudio)
Newly-composed song for cimbalom, based on a 7/16 dance rhythm orginating in Romania.

Balkan Tribes * Zurle (RealAudio)
A house version of an old Macedonian saber dance.

The Klezmatics * An Undoing World (RealAudio)
An excerpt from the theatre piece 'It's an Undoing World,' or Why Should It Be Easy When It Can Be Hard, by Tony Kushner.

Annabouboula * Ti Se Meli (What Do You Care) (RealAudio)
First recorded in the 1920's, this Greek Asia Minor folk song became a kind of blues anthem for over a million Greeks who were forced to leave their homelands in Turkey and resettle in shanty towns around Athens and elsewhere. "What's it matter to you where I'm from - since you don't love me?"

Muzsikás and Márta Sebestyén * Máramarosi táncok (Maramaros Dances) (RealAudio)
A Romanian song collected by Béla Bartók in 1913, reworked with dancing. "Hey my little lover / Don't be shivering so hard."

Garmarna * Halling from Macedonia (RealAudio)
Based on a tune that the band learned from a group of Macedonian people. It has the same rhythm as a halling, a dance most common in Norway.

Meira Asher with Kocani Orkestar * Tiring Night (RealAudio)
A mother gives up her baby into safety before soldiers arrest and exterminate her.

Zlatne Uste Balkan Brass Band * Kako Kolan Da Se Vijem (Like a Belt I'll Wind) (RealAudio)
Romany songstress Usnija Redzepova recorded this Serbian-language song with the legendary Bakija Bakic' brass band from the southern Serbian town of Vranje. It captures a moment of flirtation: "Come on Dance, forget the belt... Better that my gentle arm wind around your waist."

Mike Watt & Masina * Izniknami Badem Drvo (RealAudio)
Traditional Macedonian. "What is dearest to you in this world? Is it money, power or gold, or is it love?"

Sviraj * Rece Cica (RealAudio)
From the Banat region of Serbia. "My uncle says that it is time to marry, but my aunt says that it is not."

Three Mustaphas Three * Anapse To Tsigaro [Live] (RealAudio)
Sung in Greek, live in Germany 1988; a tough song from tougher times. "Light a cigarette and to hell with the world!"

Boiled in Lead * Shopetzki Kopanitsa (RealAudio)
Three dance tunes from western Bulgaria.