St. Nicholas Orchestra (Orkiestra p.w. sw. Mikolaja)
Kraina Bojnów
$11.99

This CD went out of print in 2003, but due to popular demand (and my own personal love of this recording) I am happy to offer this CDR edition, made to order here at cdRoots. This is NOT a bootleg, but a fully licensed version, offered by agreement with the band.

This edition is simply packaged, a CDR with a single card ink-jet printed insert with the cover artwork and track listing.

Listen! (full song, Real Audio)

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... with an emphasis on dance tunes and old songs, often sung in pretty much the old style with fiddles, flutes and newer folk instruments like accordion. Not that they are opposed to playing around with it. It is a long established trick in Polish new-folk music to fuse the polka and reggae, and St. Nick's variety works particularly well. But they are at their best when it is a tune in the original style, just pumped up to high-pressure by good musicianship and a generous love of the old music. "Polka Spod Wody" is an excellent example of that energy. Devoid of electronics it is still loud and audacious." - Cliff Furnald, RootsWorld "A lot of well made, well played albums hit the reviewing mat, but once in a while one like this comes along with that special added ingredient, gusto... The thirteen singers and musicians in the band for this album have done a lot of research, but there's nothing dry and academic here, and having absorbed the lively spirit of the music they hit its love songs, wedding party songs, midsummer songs and more with the aforementioned gusto, mixed voices and a whole bunch of traditional instruments... What comes across is something that the Pogues reminded us of (though there's much more skill in the playing here than in most Poguery, and less relation to pop music) this music is fun, these are songs we like, let's go for it! Real folk revival." Andrew Cronshaw, Folk Roots

Tracks (highlighted are MP3 samples)

1. Kolomyjka "nowa"
2. Rock and roll
3. Ne pidu ja
4. Isziel Janko
5. Kolomyjka "Mykolaju"
6. Polka spod wody
7. Wiazanka lemkowska
8. Dobry w hameryci
9. Zahrajte mi husli
10. U haiczku
11. Kied ja iszol
12. Liptowskie
13. Hrabajme
14. Tomu kosa
15. Bude jarmak
16. Hreczka
17. Lemkowska sobótkowa

About the songs:
All songs which you can find on this record are Lemkish except 4, 10, 12 and 13 which are Slovak. Three songs (1, 5, 7) are just medleys of amusing themes but most of the remaining ones tell stories about love. Some revolve around the subject of courting treated in a humorous (4, 14) or symbolic (11) way, others are a little nostalgic (3) or quite funny, like "U haiczku", "Rock and roll" or "Bude jarmak".

In the first of them a girl tells a story in which she and her boyfriend are making hay. Suddenly he faints which gives her occasion the chance to take care of him, to "cure" and kiss him. In the end, however, the girl admits that it was only a dream - but wasn't it nice? In "Rock and roll" a girl regrets that some time ago she was stupid enough to flee from her house when a lad visited her. "Bude jarmak" is a story of a husband who sells his wife in the market place which is not at all easy at the beginning. Then he comes back home and cries - who will now repair his shoes? Finally he decides to get her back, regardless of the price.

Five pieces deserve separate descriptions. "Polka spod wody" - "polka from under water" - comes from a Boyko village that is now at the bottom of an artificial lake in the Bieszczady mountains. "Dobry w Hameryci" was composed by Lemko emigrants to America. It describes their situation there: it is good in America when there is work. "Zahrajte mi husli" is a Lemko wedding party song and "Hreczka" could be played at such a wedding - it consists of Jewish klezmer tunes with a tint of Carpathian melodies. The song closing the record is a Lemko midsummer song. The multicultural mosaic of Lemko, Slovak, Boyko, Jewish and even Gypsy (11) folk cultures, was very characteristic of this south-easterly Carpathian nook of Poland and so it is of our "land of Boyns".

About the band:
The Saint Nicholas Orchestra came into existence in 1988, at first as an informal musical venture of a group of friends. Six years ago the Orchestra was established as an official student organisation and since then it has been centred at "Chatka Zaka" the Academic Centre of Culture at Marie Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin. They focus their activities on everything associated with folklore, especially whatever has been condemned to be forgotten, and yet can inspire and enrich contemporary culture. How to save the world that we now call "folklore"? How to think and speak of it ? How to reconcile it with the world we live in ? The Orchestra gathers together people who would like to experience adventure in folklore. This record is yet another such an adventure. "The Land of Boyns" is a continuation and a conclusion of their interest in the folk culture of the Bieszczady and Beskid Niski mountains. The discovery of their Land of Boyns was made in a certain large city where they were to play. The subtitle on the poster annoucing their concert read: "The music of Lemkos, Hutsuls and Boyns". Obviously, the author of the poster had made a spelling mistake and wrote "Boyns" instead of "Boykos" Ruthenians living in the Carpathian mountains between Lemkoland and the Hutsul region. After concert they began to have some doubts: Can they really say that they indeed play "the music of Boykos" or Lemkos and Hutsuls for that matter ? Their music in its original form sounded quite different and sometimes they are even uncertain whether the lyrics they sing now are accurate and so, in fact, doesn't their music belong to the Boyns and not to the Boykos ?

So we can say that ORKIESTRA P.W. SW. MIKOLAJA is inspired by traditional Polish folk music and the folklore of the Carpathian Mountains, from the Tatra highlands, through the southern mountains of Poland primarily inhabited by the Ruthenians, Lemkos and Boykos, to the Ukrainian Carpathians with their still alive Hutsul folklore. In their repertoire there are Polish and Ukrainian songs connected with folk customs, ballads, kolomaikas all rather merry and melodious with strong rhythm, complex and elaborate arrangements that make every song unique.

Included instruments are: violins, flutes and pipes, clarinets, accordion, dulcimer, mandolin, mandola, tar, balalaika, cello, congas and percussion instruments.

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