Serbian-Hungarian multi-instrumentalist and composer Szilárd Mezei is perhaps the most adventurous musician coming out of Hungary these days, and that’s saying a lot, considering the great quality of improvisers who have come from that country (think of the legendary A.E. Bizottság, for example). This is a trio album from 2008 where he plays viola while…
Tag: Serbia
Magicien Blanc – End The Beginning
A fellow expat, Christian Locke (Magicien Blanc) has come up with one of the best prog rock albums I’ve heard in a while. There are some cues from French and Italian prog bands from the 1970s and 1980s, some influence of bands of the Berlin school and Goblin, and it sounds as fresh as anything…
Banat Tamburitza Orchestra – Serbian Dance Band in New Jersey, ca. 1949-50
Canary Records produces another excellent collection of archival music, this time from Serbia. From his Bandcamp site: “The Banat Tamburitza band are said to have been formed around 1912 or ’13 in Elizabeth, New Jersey by Serbian immigrants from the village of Sânpetru Mare (then-population about 2,000) in the Banat region of present-day Timiș county…
Vartra – Basma
Our beloved friends at CPL-Music have submitted a bizarre and completely engrossing album of ethereal tribal music from Serbia in the form of Vartra. The band was founded in 2017 by Siniša Gavrić and sisters Ivana and Aleksandra Stošić. What makes the music so interesting is that it not only draws from Serbian folk themes,…
Various Artists – Let’s Stamp: 1950s Folk Dance Recordings from Bulgarian and Yugoslavian 78rpm Discs
The ever-reliable Canary Records out of Baltimore, Maryland, have released a compilation of Balkan 78 rpm shellacs with a lot of the artists being unidentified, but whose music is most assuredly from my home away from home.
MAiKA – Balkannibalism
In a land of amazing bands and ensembles, MAiKA have managed to forcefully grab my attention. While they call themselves an alternative dance-punk band, there’s so much more to the music. The energy is amazing, the voices cut right through you in a way that most indie music can’t, and the fact that they combine brass…
Ansambl Mileta Petrovića – Veseli Romi
The Ansambl Mileta Petrovića were a band out of the former Yugoslavia (namely, the area of Niš, Serbia) who were around from the early 1980s until around 1991, before the erstwhile Communist union fell apart and hell broke out everywhere. Radio Martiko document some of their finer moments on this album.
Zoran Simjanović – Grlom u Jagode
Zoran Simjanović was a film music composer, film music editor and soundtrack composer from Serbia in the Former Yugoslavia. While talking with my girlfriend, we discussed the passing of actor Branko Cvejić, and she made mention that he starred in the TV series Grlom u Jagode. The soundtrack was quite popular in its day, and…
[Video] Trio Paloma – Ay, Chabela
Enjoy the pleasures of Trio Paloma, Serbia’s answer to mariachi music!
Manja Ristić – The Black Isle
In honor of returning to lovely Belgrade, I salute the occasion with Serbian electrostatic composer Manja Ristić, now based in Croatia.