Auktyon at SXSW March 16, 2006

Caribbean Lights
614 E 6th St.

Tickets at SXSW.com

Down but certainly not out, it's best not to bet against the Eastern Bloc. The heavyweight is St. Petersburg's 20-year-old Auktyon ensemble, an ecstatic Russian eight-piece that mixes native folk and jazz into its poprock agitation machine. If Tom Waits remains outside the U.S. mainstream, imagine what he might have produced if his compositions actually had been outlawed ? that's pretty much where bandleader Leonid Fedorov and his collaborators are coming from.
- The Austin Chronicle