These street-rompers have their roots in a long-established Cologne band, who were rallied into more "organised" form by ringmaster/guitarist Raimund Kroboth in 1994. Schal is the local word for awry, skewed, crooked or cross-eyed, schal sick referring to being on the "wrong" side of the Rhine, the city's "newer" zone, officially incorporated at the start of this century. Springing from mainly jazz backgrounds, the players have a healthy desire for odd time-signatures (11/8 is a favourite), thus propelled towards Bulgarian, Bavarian, Nubian and Persian folk tunes, bristling with reeds and brass, prodded by the wet snout of truculent tuba-huffer Joachim Gellert. Iranian singer Maryam Akhondy leads the chase in obscure song acquisitions, embracing everything from serene ballads to fidgety yodels. The band's repertoire takes in South American calypso, Nigerian reggae and Madras brass, extra tools arriving in the form of alphorns, melodica, metal percussion and Turkish saz, the results both jokey and complex, assuring dancers of their first hernia. The closing "Ravina" features a soothing theremin melody-line from Lydia Kavina, the granddaughter of the instrument's inventor, evoking a twilight glide down the river: salve for your swollen feet. --Martin Longley
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