Jobie Reviews Music 62: Spiel, Brüdchen, spiel! (album) by Boris Rubaschkin and F. Bilek Ensemble

(requested by F63) Spiel, Brüderchen, spiel! is a 2002 Russian folk album by Boris Rubaschkin and the F. Bilek Ensemble. It contains 20 songs, spanning 57 minutes of music. The album consists of traditional Russian folk music, with some original material and lots of covers of classic Russian folk songs (including Kalinka).

As expected from a Russian folk album, the music is quite good. The vocals, the mellow guitar - it has everything you’d expect it to. And yet, none of it sounds bland or overdone. It's just feel-good Russian folk music, and you can’t go wrong with that. There’s really nothing bad about this album. Sure, some of the songs sound the same, but that’s mostly down to me not understanding the lyrics. The sound of the songs themselves are unique, however

My favorite tracks from this album are “Moskauer Näche”, “Abendglocken”, and “Kalinka”.

Overall, this album is what you’d expect from Russian folk music; feel good, good tracks which sometimes sound the same (especially to a non-Russian speaker), but are good nonetheless. I’d say more, but sadly I can’t find much to say about this album. Regardless of that, this album is still great.

Overall rating:

9/10

LINK TO ALBUM:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0OvFTuHwNbdlrbiZhoSsMR?si=tMVTIU4YQ-67zD9bkrKWNQ