Artist The Shtetlblasters

You certainly couldn’t accuse The Shtetlblasters of just contentedly slouching their way into the jam-funk circuit. As much as it crackles with slap-bass and oozes with wah-wah pedal, the Madison five-piece’s music twists raucously along the scales and rhythms of Klezmer and other sounds of Eastern Europe. Electric and acoustic mandolins take the place of guitars, and clarinet lines gyrate off into the distance like drugged-up magic carpets on the band’s 2010 album, Tantz Mit.... The band finds heated chemistry between the Semitic and the psychedelic on most of the tracks, especially “Khusidlekh” and “Los Biblicos.” Even the unfortunately titled “Hole At The Center (Of Your Everything Bagel)” pulls off a cosmic, multi-ethnic belly-flop.

Updated 02/28/2011