Lemon Bucket Orkestra Unveils New Album, Cuckoo
Lemon Bucket Orkestra are Toronto’s original Slavic-Balkan-Klezmer-Party-Punks – and they are back with their new album Cuckoo.
The multi-award-winning ensemble has been heralded as a groundbreaking, genre-bending phenomenon by media and fans alike, and over the past 13 years they have performed all over the world from WOMAD in England and New Zealand and Pohoda in Slovakia, to Festival D’Été in Québec City, and Luminato in Toronto. The Guardian proclaimed that their performances are “gorgeously sung and passionately played” and The New York Times declared them “charismatic…handsome and ambitious.”
Equal parts exhilarating precision and reckless abandon, LBO’s live shows are a truly immersive experience ranging from the ecstatic to the cathartic and all points in between. Now they have been weaving that unique blend of energy and emotion onto their upcoming album Cuckoo. The new record combines powerful Ukrainian polyphony, driving Balkan rhythms, and modern Western musical elements. This mixture of Eastern Europe and the America’s is further elevated with the special feature of Macedonian master trumpeter Nizo Alimov, formerly of Kocani Orkestar. To quote the Winnipeg Free Press, the experience will be: “Amazing, frenetic, gloriously anarchic and ultimately joyous
First off care to introduce yourself to our readers?
This is Nathan Dell-Vandenberg, singer and trombonist with Canada’s favourite Slavic-Balkan-Klezmer-Party-Punks, “Lemon Bucket Orkestra”
Tell us a bit about your recent release.
“Cuckoo” is the 4th full-length release in Lemon Bucket’s 14-year history and is a return to their roots of high energy, celebratory madness in twisting Eastern European folk music to invite in all colours and creeds of people.
How do you typically go about the songwriting process? Do you have a specific method or creative routine that you follow?
Lemon Bucket has always been written collectively in workshop scenarios, usually stemming from songs we have been jamming around the dinner table. We’re constantly digging into old recordings or learning songs from ethnomusicolgist friends, looking for those special songs that resonate with us and our audiences. From there we’d go into writing sessions starting with concepts for combining different cultural styles, mashups of songs, and exploring unique twists on classics or the obscure.
Looking ahead, what are your plans for supporting this new release? Are there any upcoming tours, music videos, or additional content that fans can look forward to in connection with this project?
We have an upcoming US tour around the Northeast (NYC, Buffalo, Shenandoah Junction, Dayton, State College, Detroit) at the end of May into June, an East Coast Canadian tour (Montreal, Moncton, St. John, Fredericton, Quebec City, Ottawa) in October, and a number of Summer festivals around Ontario and Quebec. We just released our music video for the title single “Cuckoo” now available for viewing on Youtube and will have a bunch of new merch to go along with our CDs and Vinyl.
Looking back on your musical career, is there a particular moment or accomplishment that you consider a turning point or a highlight?
There are many high points in the history of the 14-year-old band! Notably for us sharing bills with the likes of Taraf de Haidouks, Kocani Orkestar, Boban and Marko Markovic, and Shantel to name some idols of ours.
Also having the opportunity to experiment and explore combining the folk music we perform (Eastern European) and the folk music of Dulsori (Korean) whom invited and hosted us in South Korea for the better part of a month. As a third highlight, having the opportunity to perform at two of the most epic world music festivals, WOMAD, one outside of London and the other over in New Zealand.
Last but not least, it’s time to pay it forward, what upcoming band or artist would you recommend your fans check out?
One particular artist in our neck of the woods, Ahmed Moneka, has been putting on captivating, heartwarming, and incredibly energetic performances that I can’t get enough of. With his new record recently released, he’s one to watch and listen to.
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