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Your support makes all the difference.I have seen the ghost of the Marx Brothers and they are called Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen. Already forcibly removed from various Fringe press launches for spontaneous outbursts of East European polkas while simultaneously leaping on to tables, sprawling across glass-strewn bars and scaling crowded stairwells, Mikelangelo and the Black Sea Gentlemen could be escapees from an Emir Kusturica film. Then again, they could be a Romany wedding band, complete with ill-fitting suits and hats, inflamed with bloody, death-tinged ballads of lust and Balkan madness.
Actually, the trio are Australians of Eastern European descent who are taking their musical heritage into a new serio-comic dimension. Led by the booming bass vocals of Mikelangelo - they won't reveal their real names - the band play ancient acoustic instruments as if a life depended on it; swapping accordion, violin, clarinet and double bass as they charge from dirges into hyper-fast waltzes.
Like the Marx Brothers, Mikelangelo's deadpan yet dashingly athletic combo are all highly accomplished musicians providing the bittersweet backing to ballads of suicidal angst, grisly lovers' revenge and - a favourite already - a jaunty cannibalistic love song, "A Formidable Marinade". Exuberant, faintly disturbing and extremely funny.
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