Once upon a time, aspiring rock musicians in search of “roots” would head off to Chicago’s South Side bars or venture into Mississippi juke joints. There, seated at the feet of wizened black American oracles, they would pray (or pay) to be anointed with “the blues”. Today, those searching for exotic inspiration look to eastern Europe.

A case in point is Jeremy Barnes and Heather Trost – better known as A Hawk and a Hacksaw – with whom I walk the streets of Budapest. The duo’s gorgeous 2006 album, The Way the Wind Blows, has the Romanian-gypsy brass band Fanfare Ciocarlia blowing elegiac Balkan blues on several tracks, and this Budapest sojourn involves the duo collaborating with the Hun Hangar Ensemble for a UK tour. Barnes (accordion) and Trost (violin) are finding common ground with Hungarian cymbalom, trumpet, clarinet, double-bass and bagpipe players, and brewing a unique fusion. But what drove the couple from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to go east? “I first heard east European music while living in Chicago,” says Barnes, who made his name as drummer in the cult American band Neutral Milk Hotel, “where there’s always been a large Polish, Ukrainian, Serbian and Romanian population. The local thrift shops were full of extraordinary albums, and they turned my head.”

“I learnt the violin parts for Bartok’s opera Duke Bluebeard’s Castle aged 12,” Trost adds, “so I developed a fascination for the Transylvanian field recordings Bartok did, the stuff that informed his compositions. I also played in a local klezmer band, and learnt a lot there.”

“It’s a challenge attempting these kinds of collaboration,” Barnes muses. “We love these people’s music, and want to work with them on an equal footing, not just hire them as exotic decoration. In Romania, I travelled to Fanfare Ciocarlia’s village unsure if they would understand where I was coming from, but we ended up having a great time, inspiring one another.”

While A Hawk and a Hacksaw are western musicians looking to communicate with eastern, the New York band Gogol Bordello represent the east-west embrace as a pure cartoon spectacle, one comparable to the Serbian director Emir Kusturica’s madcap films, such as Time of the Gypsies and Underground. Gogol Bordello’s vocalist, Eugene Hutz, coined the term “gypsy punk”, though it is somewhat misleading, as none of GB is a Romany gypsy, and all are too old to be punks. Yet their very loud, very panto performance has won an enthusiastic British following, and Hutz is now working on a collaboration with the Russian Kolpakov Trio, all graduates of Moscow’s Romen Gypsy Theatre, which may have interesting results. A similarly gonzo hard-rock reinvention of Balkan folk music informs the Seattle-based, Yugoslav-refugee band Kultur Shock. Rarely subtle, but often infectious, their hybrid eastern folk-rock has won them praise from former members of Nirvana and a following of metal fans.

Also proving that Americans have an interest in geography are Beirut, indie kids who appeared from nowhere last summer to become the biggest band yet to arise out of the west-east fusion. Led by New Mexico native Zach Condon, 20, Beirut last year made a debut album, Gulag Orkestar, that is perhaps best described as “Radiohead go Balkan”. Condon got turned on to the Serbian-gypsy brass-band leader Boban Markovic while holidaying in Paris. Back in New Mexico, he was introduced to Barnes and Trost – who helped him to record Gulag Orkestar – and found himself the subject of a bidding war between labels.

A Hawk and a Hacksaw shrug off any suggestion of New Mexico being a hotbed of east-west fusion. Yet Balkan brass music is proving increasingly popular with clubbers, its wild, pumping horns, rolling percussion and exotic flavours making for infectious party music. Balkan beats – as the genre is branded – came about in equal part via Fanfare Ciocarlia’s continental conquests (the village band from northeast Romania generate a ferocious oriental funk) and the flood of Yugoslav refugees bringing their culture west: one such, the Bosnian DJ Robert Soko, started aBerlin club night in 1996; the German label Eastblok issues his BalkanBeats compilations.

Arriving at the Szechenyi Baths, the Hawk, Hacksaw and I choose to brave a damp afternoon in an outdoor thermal pool. As we bob blissfully beneath grey skies, the conversation focuses on an invitation to participate in 1000 Year Journey, a festival of gypsy music at the Barbican. This year’s lineup takes in music from Spain, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Turkey, Russia and Hungary. AHAAH will support Fanfare Ciocarlia on the Barbican stage.

“What we all share as musicians,” Barnes says of the western musicians looking east, “is that we’re all the product of the Taraf de Haidouks and Fanfare Ciocarlia CDs. Those bands mapped out the music in such an exciting way that you couldn’t help but be interested in it.” Nearly submerged, the couple wave off my next question, just wanting to relax. “Soaked in this spa too long before the last rehearsal,” Trost says, “so drained all our energy. Won’t do that again.” And, with a chuckle, she slips beneath warm Hungarian waters.

Kultur Shock, Camden Underworld, NW1, May 2; A Hawk and a Hacksaw start their British tour at Zodiac, Oxford, on May 5; 1000 Year Journey is at the Barbican, EC2, from May 29 to June 16

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