OMFO
We Are the Shepherds

Dasvidania babbuzzi, the Politburo is proud to announce that our man from Odessa has established the first lunar club reserved only for shepherds. Strictly prohibited in this kolkhoz are jet-set figures and celebrities, only rivers of vodka, "motor-pump" balalaika, and beautiful Slavic maidens dancing at 140 bpm, in a nice Soviet-Techno amusement park (licensing review).

Thus, after the inaugural journey of the Trans Balkan Express in 2004, crowned by the film Borat, OMFO, acronym for Our Man From Odessa, among sheep, Kraftwerk, vodka, and dub, publishes an improbable propaganda manifesto in favor of shepherds: after all, as read from the album booklet, the dog Lajka, Mr. Gagarin, and the Russian cosmonauts were nothing but icons of a Soviet imaginary, where absolute power was given to peasants and workers who could thus conquer space... In fact, it is from space that the bleating of sheep is heard, opening the work with "Choban in Space," a Pindaric overture that anticipates the spastic intentions of this electro-Balkan party. And so, amidst the inebriation of "Drunk 'n' Space," "Flujerash," "Sheperd Disco," and the idiocy of "Tequila Gang Bang," a curtain of Ural dances opens with choral shouts and compelling rhythms that literally send dancers flying and entertain all party participants drunk on music and not just that.

The formula adopted is different from Shantel's folkloristic style (for which OMFO remixed the super hit "Bucovina") approaching the Central European electronics of Kraftwerk echoed in "Dagistan" and "Voskresenie" with talkbox voices and arpeggiated bleeps, and the more academic dub of Mad Professor as in "Orbital Hora." Observing the album globally, it thus results in a good idea, but poorly exploited: some useless pastimes ("Jok De Doi" and "007 Baran Odissey") and boring ballroom songs ("Utomljonneje Solntse" and "Neobiknovenije Glaza") interpose between the more exciting and original moments, infusing the suspicion that the originality of this work is not entirely spontaneous.

Consequently, once back on earth, the shepherds return the sheep to the fold, and the USSR has collapsed, but the pleasant headache of vodka and the babbuzza musical vitality remains...