Gogol Bordello
Produced by Rick Rubin, Trans-Continental Hustle is an extraordinary 13-song powerhouse that continues the band’s cultural crusade to unite and celebrate unending originality against all odds. On Trans-Continental Hustle Gogol Bordello bring us to a new exotic destination, Brazil, where frontman and visionary Eugene Hutz took up residence two years ago. Trans-Continental Hustle is heavily informed by Hutz’s experiences living in a country rich with diversity.
On Trans-Continental Hustle, Hutz’s experience-driven-Gonzo-mania is transformed into a seeker of harmony and understanding. Songs on Trans-Continental Hustle bring the listener straight into the heart of the situation whether it be joining forces with gypsies of Brazil as on “Uma Menina Uma Cigana,” melancholy strike in the midst of carnival near death experiences as on “Sun on My Side” or themes of transcontinental love devastations. As one of today’s most revered live bands with over 200 shows a year, Hutz’s intense personal life appears on the album like a second plot, or Transcontinental Love hustle, running parallel to endless travel through continents.
Produced by Rick Rubin, Trans-Continental Hustle is the next powerful step in the band’s evolution. Rubin brings Eugene’s songwriting skills to focus and also lets the band speak to its authenticity with deeper melodic qualities. “Rick inspired us to focus on the very soul entity of the song,” says Hutz on working with Rubin for the first time. “He inspires confidence to always do your best and mature work.”
Gogol Bordello also introduces a driving rhythm section on songs such as “Raise The Knowledge” and “Last One Goes The Hope” with the arrival of drummer Oliver Charles, Ethiopian bassist Thomas Gobena (Bill Laswell) and Latino American percussionist Pedro Erazo-Segovia. Gogol Bordello’s stellar line-up also includes Sergey Rjabtzev on violin, Yuri Lemeshev on accordion, Oren Kaplan on guitar, dancer/percussionists Elizabeth Sun and Pamela Jintana Racine as well as our fearless leader Eugene Hutz on vocals, guitar and percussion.
Trans-Continental Hustle is the first Gogol Bordello studio album since 2007's SUPER TARANTA! which inspired the rarest of accolades, an "A+" from Robert Christgau, who called them "the world's most visionary band." Gogol Bordello's radical invocations of positive primal energy and planetary consciousness combine with a music infused with ska, metal, punk, rap, dub and, more recently, intimations of indigenous Brazilian sounds to produce a party maelstrom of electrifying proportions.