E.P. by Ronin (BAR20)

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"Bar La Muerte" might not sound like the kind of place where you'd readily stop for a pint, but it is a fine name for a record label. Bruno Dorella, who runs the label, is also the head honcho of Ronin. In a swerve away from his punk/improv roots, Ronin are a bizarre mixture of spaghetti western (or perhaps polenta western, given the region of Italy that they're from), Balkan folk and Italian roots music.
Their debut ep has five tracks which occasionally sound like Calexico surrounded by Central European fog rather than Texan dust, Godspeed You Black Emperor at a Bulgarian wedding party, a Morricone soundtrack for an Emir Kusturica film. The "Ronin Theme" and its reprise are the standout track, an almost Ry Cooder-ish gutar phrase counterpointed by accordion creating a bizarre shifting perspective - one second you know where you are, then you're somewhere else, and finally you're not at all sure where you are. "Nada" sounds like Loren Mazzacane Connor or even hints at John Fahey, a delicately picked guitar and some rattling echo conjuring up ghosts of some other place.
The building, sweaty, manic, disturbed and disturbing "Canzone d'amore moldava" is something which, like Ronin themselves, ought to be enjoyed live rather than on record. Probably in a place called something like the Bar La Muerte.