rundevilrun records: Press

When I was in Taiwan a few years ago, I frequently saw this one kind of car that I thought was the coolest piece of automotive architecture I ever saw. It was a Citroen from the early 1980s, sort of long and bottlenosed, with the back wheels totally covered by the frame, and it lowered itself to the ground when parked and elevated itself to drive. I've never seen one in Canada, but if I were to ever feel inclined to purchase a car, I would probably track one of these beasts down.

Then, in late 2005 I received this album, "Street Parade", from Greek indie band Rakias. In hand drawn front, back, and inside cover artwork the very car of my dreams is staring back at me. There appears to be liner notes dealing with this car, but since everything is in Greek I can't understand a word of it. At the very least, my dream car is the cover model for a pretty cool folk/punk record.

I'm not exactly what this music is Rakias is feeding me; it's gotta be something pretty unique to the Balkan peninsula. It's acoustic-based, laid-back Mediterranean folk with a perky punk twist - or perhaps the other way around. The Eastern European flavour of it all has a vague similarity to Gogol Bordello, but without the over-the-top weirdness of that eccentric band. Think Gogol Bordello meeting the Slackers or Bedouin Soundclash at a summertime music festival. The mood of it all is pretty chilled, though It's got some really upbeat tracks ("Maryloo" is one I can name, but the others have Greek titles) as well.

To seal the deal, Rundevilrun is setting a precedent for the nicest digipack casing I have ever seen. It's oversized so it doesn't fit a standard rack, and the artwork is hand-drawn and very vivid. Both the music and the packaging is sure to gather some attention at the next barbeque you attend.