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Written in fRoots issue 256, 2004

OGNJEN & PRIJATELJI
Brate Frate
PGP-RTS CD413988 (2002)

So much good music is emerging from Serbia. There’s all the wild brass, of course, but that’s far from all.
      There’s no brass in Serbian clarinettist and soprano saxist Ognjen Popović’s impeccable band, which here returns with a second album of immensely articulate composition and playing. (The first was 2001’s Balkan Rumba on Radio Free B92’s label). Again, they caress memorable melodies that, apart from a couple of “trad arranged”, are Popović’s own compositions, sliding neatly into tradition while expanding it. Over a beautifully integrated, light and agile rhythm section of guitar, double bass and two percussionists, able to turn on a dinar, there are constant twists and changes of direction and texture, with the lead player changing throughout, sometimes Popović himself or second clarinettist Šamu Kiš but also Bojan Nikolić’s accordion or Ksenija Milosević’s violin; the latter’s silkily muted sections evoke 1930s middle Europe and radio orchestras, a nostalgia I didn’t know I had until they created it in me. That’s it; this is one of those rare instrumental albums that, like those of fellow-Serb Boris Kovač and his LaDaABa Orchest, creates pictures in the mind so satisfyingly that one has no craving for the sound of a voice.
      UK distributor is International, www.international-records.com; their mail-order site is www.passiondiscs.co.uk


© 2004 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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