About us: What folks say about us

The motto of the German label Piranha is "swimming among sharks since 1987," and perhaps you need sharp little teeth to survive among the big fish. However, this fish is far from aggressive. In fact, starting back in the day when "world music" was a shiny new marketing term, Piranha made its own little place in the pool, under the slightly idiosyncratic direction of its head, Christoph Borkowsy -- who not only created and runs the annual Womex world music conference, but who also (quite justly) won the 2008 Ehren-Ruth, the world music Oscar, for his contribution to the music. Piranha's place is on the fringes, rather than in the deep water, but it's an area populated with plenty of interesting creatures, ranging from Shona healer and mbira player Stella Chiwese to the best Balkan brass band in the world and a Brazilian rock group that uses ballpoint pens as part of their instrumentation. Weird, sometimes wacky, usually wonderful, the music might be all over the place, but there's a warped cohesion to Piranha's decidedly left-of-centre worldview.

They've found several like-minded souls who've tagged along for the journey, including producer Ben Mandelson (once part of 3 Mustaphas 3 and now one of Billy Bragg's Blokes), Klezmatics founder Frank London, whose brass experiments have taken Jewish music to new and interesting meetings, and percussionist Mahmoud Fadl, who keeps connecting the dots between ancient Nubian rhythms and the modern dancefloor. It's more like a family than a business, full of eccentric cousins scattered around the globe, all under Borkowsky's gently paternal supervision.

That unity, perhaps, is what truly sets Piranha apart. They hold their own against the sharks -- and if you can do that for more than two decades, then you're obviously doing something right. It's a label that's forged a reputation for quality and style (however offbeat that style might be) and a gloriously quirky identity. They know it's still a big old world out there, from Basque punks to maverick Brazilian forro accordionists, and they're intent on discovering it, one hidden corner at a time.

(http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=31956693)

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"For us, it was about powerful music with strong political and emotional content. The first time we came to Berlin, we chose songs from the Yiddish socialist tradition. We recorded our first album in the SFB-Studios and Christoph Borkowsky said to us: »you are young musicians from New York and play this music like in the old records. I don't hear any contemporary New York in there. Why don't you put more of yourselves in the music you do?«. This comment was a wonderful gift. A label gave us the possibility to do something with our music. We couldn't decline such an opportunity. It was as if a box full of new toys had opened in front of our eyes. Everything goes back to that moment, when someone told us: just do it!"