Kayah & Goran Bregovic - Kayah i Bregovic (1999)

With their sound lying somewhere between trip-hop and folk music, Kayah & Goran Bregovic are one of the more unique acts to emerge out of Poland. Kayah had already been making electronic-based pop on her own before this teaming, but Bregovic adds a delicate warmth that her previous material was sorely lacking. Her beautiful croon makes a Björk-esque track like "Trudno Kochac" that much better, because she adds the icy balance to the strings and keyboards and keeps everything moving in the same direction. On the other hand, some of the weirder and experimental ideas seem to also come from her, as sounds like the bizarre, exotic ska of "Prawy Do Lewego" seem very rooted in her personality. But whatever direction the album takes, it all holds together due to the strong ideas these two musicians express on the ten tracks here. Anyone who can look past the language barrier can find a brooding, interesting album here that genre-hops without shame and presents a unique duo who hopefully have more albums in them.