A musical survey of Balkan states of mind. Two views.
East/West mixes via
Ryan Walsh & Evelyne Buhler
A psychogeography, with selections by
Neg-Fi.
The Balkan Peninsula is an icon of the fractured land
that forms between the tides of empires.
It's history betrayed by the degradations of demagogues.
The map, a many stranded tapestry of folkloric beauty, spiritual corruption and nationalist butchery.
The Balkans witnessed Byzantium's last stand.
Crusader vengeance via The Holy See.
Isolated valleys caught between the Ottoman Empire's Islamic expansions, Habsburg Austrian-Hungarian pretensions and Greek and Russian Orthodoxy.
Tito's national unification and subsequent post-Soviet style break-up and NATO post cold-war disorganization all add to the current mix.
Imperial pressures, collisions of dogma, fear of the other. Revolution and industrialization fed the frictions that frayed the social apart.
Long threads of thought, we follow the wool. Piecing back together the fabric of communities long torn asunder. People and herds mixing, migrating along mountainsides and into valleys. In noisy numbers, bells ring, footsteps and hoof treads trace multiple threads.
Caravans of culture, village to mountain to village. Communities growing into coastal cities connected to the world afar. The mountains multifold with dialects and lineages yet many share a lingua franca.
People trade positions and provisions and improvised songs.
Goat skin bladders, Double reed and drum. Group harmonics for mountain passes.
Greek and Turk, Slav and Romani, German and Jew to name but a few that add to the melody.
History forces us to recognize that new musics now haunt
the hate burnt villages, destroyed factories and blood filled valleys.
Laments for lost shepards and black sheep. Polyester and petrol.
Post-punk units using soundsystems in guerrilla deployment.
Musicians document the recent social transformation. Aesthetics of urgency and insecurity tangle with each other as historians search the tapestry's torn edge. Search parties question this map. Borderlands are repeatably disputed and denied. The location of mass graves leaving a permanent stain upon the land that cannot be forgotten.
How now to challenge the post-atrocity status quo?
How now to heal this fractured land?
side AJVAR
1) Raya Brass Band -
Tavs Hrysodaktili [self relase]
2) Goran Alachki -
Ratevka - Music from Macedonia 2 [caprice]
3) Orkestar Ace -
Djigukino oro - Music from Macedonia 2 [caprice]
4) Synthesis -
Goceva - Music from Macedonia 2 [caprice]
5) Boyan Kirilova Georgieva, Nadezhda Kostadinova Doneva, Stanka Krumova Dimcheva {singers} -
Planino Prirn, planino dzhanum - In the Shadow of the Mountain/BULGARIAN FOLK MUSIC [nonesuch explorer]
6) Raya Brass Band -
Tasos Hasapiko [self release]
7) Muzafer Mahmud -
Mirveta - Music from Macedonia 1 [caprice]
8) Bitov Orchestra -
Krivo Horo - A harvest, a shepard, a bride : Village Music of Bulgaria [nonesuch explorer]
9) Xan Strajani -
Kur do behesh nouse, couco - Music from Macedonia 2 [caprice]
10) Raya Brass Band -
Dada Sali [self release]
***
side BUREK
11) Pankrti -
Sarajevo 1984 - Rdeci Album [rtv]
12) Sarlo Akrobata -
Bes - Bistriji Ili Tuplji Covek Biva Kad
13) Multietnicka Atrakcija -
Minijaturna Gradjevena - Multietnicka Atrakcija
14) Repetitor -
Slamcica - Sve sto vidim je prvi put
15) Petrol -
Progresan Kod - Nezgodno vreme opasni dani
16) Stuttgart Online -
Dva Miliona ljudi - Radost Svakom Domacinstvu
17) Sarlo Akrobata -
Mali Covek - Bistriji Ili Tuplji Covek Biva Kad
18) Multietnicka Atrakcija -
Veliki Grad - Multietnicka Atrakcija
19) Repetitor -
Ja - Sve sto vidim je prvi put
20) Petrol -
Beirut - Nezgodno vreme opasni dani
21) Stuttgart Online -
Superheroi - Nezgodno vreme opasni dani
22) Sarlo Akrobata -
Samo Ponekad - Bistriji Ili Tuplji Covek BIva Kad
23) Pankrti -
Bandiera Rossa - Rdeci Album (rtv)
