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Written in fRoots issue 311, 2009
 

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Srbija Sounds Global: All Stars
B92 B92CD 220 (2008)

Four years after the third in the excellent Srbija Sounds Global trio of compilations, which began in 2000 as the Balkans began the agonising struggle to emerge from the madness of its conflicts, comes this one, again compiled by B92 radio presenter, manager and Ring Ring festival director Bojan Djordjevic and Milos Mitic from B92’s own releases and other sources.
     As the title implies, it has something of a retrospective, ‘best-of’ feel, with most of the tracks taken from recordings made between 2000 and 2003 and largely featuring well-known performers who have appeared on one or more of the earlier releases. There are new inclusions, though. The new band Vrelo consists of seven young women, clad onstage in schoolgirl outfits, singing traditional songs backed just by heavy-rocky bass and drums, are making waves in Serbia and abroad. The popular Svonko Bogdan’s matinee-idol looks and rich baritone backed by cimbalom, accordion, violin and bass in one of his songs of Serbia’s flat northern region of Vojvodina evokes the ‘radio singers’ of the mid and late 20th century. Double bassist Djordje Stijepovic applies rockabilly slap-bass to a Bulgarian-style ruchenitsa, and multi-ethnic band Shira U’tfila’s music, male vocals backed by oud, violin, qanun, bass and darabuka, is largely from Sephardic, Ottoman and Arabic traditions.
     They’re joined by strong tracks from those who’ve appeared before. The lived-in voice of the late king of Roma singers throughout the Balkans, Saban Bajramovic, the very contrasting baritone of Pavle Aksentijevic soaring over tambura and tapan in one of the songs from his long researching of Serbian traditional and church music, reeds player Ognjen Popovic and his band, a hot scampering cocek from the late violin virtuoso Aleksandar Sisic, whose comeback was triggered by his track on SSG 2, classic but far from classical Roma band Kal led by singer-guitarist Dragan Ristic, a choice hot one from Boban Markovic and his Roma brass orchestra, and an odd choice, a short 7/8 duet between Svetlana Spajic and the colourful and individualistic multi-instrumentalist Darko Macura on tambura which features not her mighty traditional singing but her jew’s harp.
     Presumably on the assumption that most people will only buy one of the CDs, four tracks here appeared on the earlier releases, and indeed it would be a shame to miss any of them: violinist Lajko Felix from Serbia’s Hungarian border in a wild live collaboration with Boban Markovic and his band, a tricky number from the rival brass orchestra led by Slobodan Salijevic, saxist Boris Kovac and his LaDaABa Orchest with the fin-de-siècle The Last Balkan Tango, and Olah Vince’s Roma band Earth-Wheel-Sky with the string-surging Rroma Adagio.
     In his booklet note Dragan Kremer writes “It appears in the meantime the scene has lost its momentum, or at least become less important”. That may be the case in terms of commercial music and fashion, but not only that. Serbia, and the Balkans in general, is in danger of neglecting its musical essence: the varied and living village vocal and instrumental musical traditions that underlie the more distinctive of its commercial music. These SSG compilations don’t include any field recordings, of traditional village singing and instrumental playing (including, for example, frula), and there are vanishingly few commercially available recordings. Urban musicians drawing on village music are represented to some extent, but there are several promising newcomers emerging.
     Serbia contains a wide variety of remarkable and unique folk musics among its regions and ethnic groups, still living but many with a diminishing social role. There’s a real risk that they’ll be bypassed and wither as the country aims for its economic and European future, unless their value in the country’s culture, for its own citizens and as an enticement to visitors, can be championed among the new and, fingers crossed, improving political powers.
     While inevitably not a complete picture, the four Srbija Sounds Global releases are a well-chosen display of some of the most instantly attractive of the country’s exciting vari-rooted music.

     www.b92.net/music


© 2009 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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