No security clearances are required to enjoy Seattle's KGB. With fiddle, mandolin, guitar and piano, KGB creates subversive music, lulling the unwary with traditional New England contradance tunes, then jumping off into Balkan modalities, tango riffs and bluesy jigs. Claude slides from growling grooves to impossible high notes on the fiddle. Dave creates percussive energy and dazzling riffs on anything with strings. Julie explores the emotional range of the keyboard from majestic to down and dirty.

Claude Ginsburg's violin melts, swings, growls, soars. He infuses KGB's music with passion, rhythm, hitting notes high on the fingerboard with power and sweetness. Claude deftly inserts elements of Klezmer, Latin American, jazz fusion and French Romantic music into New England fiddle tunes, while years of contradance playing keeps his music connected to the dancers.

Dave Bartley strikes sparks with his wicked mandolin, driving guitar a...