Yugo-nostalgia - Vinyl Joblottin' ep.17

Each week on Vinyl Joblottin’ we buy a bundle of vinyl at auction (or find one in a record shop, charity shop, car boot sale, etc). The records are a slice of a collection, giving us a glimpse into a collector’s past. Then we spin each joblot into a theme for you.

Welcome to Vinyl Joblottin'
Listen to episode 17 here - https://www.mixcloud.com/AlbanLow/yugo-nostalgia-vinyl-joblottin-ep17/

In 2015 I visited the city of Niš in Serbia. I was the guest of musician Dejan Ilijic, and his brother Alen, the avant-garde composer. I sketched at gigs, and talked to poets, artists and filmmakers. I learnt about Tito and Yugoslavia. I drank rakija and listened to fresh new music. This joblot of records from the Radio-Televizija Beograd and Jugoton labels captures a slice of Yugoslav life and music. 

Alban Low is your Joblotter. Part of the 'A World in London' radio series. This Joblot of 7 records cost £3.65.

Tracklist
1. Lamento - Krunoslav Kićo Slabinac
2. Tri Jetrve Žito Žele - 
3. Sunce Jarko, Ne Sijaš Jednako - Dubravka Nešović I Veliki Narodni Orkestar
4. Resensko Oro - Tale Ognenovski
5. Plava Noć - Ansambl Dalmacija
6. Rožmarine - Folklorno Društvo Mate Balota Iz Pule
7. Oj Vrsuto - Grupa Pevača I Veliki Narodni Orkestar RTB

This radio programme is part of the A World In London Radio Series, more information at http://djritu.squarespace.com/

EYOT - Stone Upon Stone Festival, Nis, Serbia

Slađan Milenović - guitar

Despite there being one more day to come of the Stone Upon Stone festival in Nis, Serbia this night was the axis for many of the audience (17/04/2015). It was the turn of local heroes EYOT to make their appearance on stage. Alongside poet Dalibor Popović the organisation of the festival had rested in the hands of EYOT pianist Dejan Ilijic. Not only had they put their sweat and tears into this 4 day fiesta but the title of the festival originates from their 2010 tune 'Stone Upon Stone' from their 2010 album Horizon.

Marko Stojiljković - bass

It was a trademark EYOT performance that dwelt in warm, dark and sickly themes yet retains that uplifting riposte through pulse and musical battery. Every time you experience EYOT you come to them afresh, a blank canvas if you will. To use another empty metaphor, a sheet of virgin lino sat before us on this night. As they opened their set we cut into our impressionable minds with our sharpened lino tools, we gauged its flat surface with their ruts. The dark ink of EYOT's sound pooled into our grooves and after each song we were left with this black sticky residue. We were unable to let go of their themes, to make sense of every complexity, we struggled to quell our delirium tremens.

Dejan Ilijic - piano

Dejan Ilijic plays the simple fool in the EYOT line up but do not be deceived. While the heavy machinery of Marko Stojiljković (bass), Slađan Milenović (guitar) and Miloš Vojvodić (drums) slam into the molten steel he is the flash that spits and sparks. As the crucible runs dry we can still hear the crackles of the cooling metal as it passes through Dejan Ilijic's piano.

EYOT are more than weighty metals and stone shorn from deep quarry. There is also majesty that unravels in delicate terms, a finery of thread, a golden braid which isn't so much about construction as its slow regal decline. Although Stojiljković towers on stage it was Milenović's guitar which held court, his sound was strong and monumental.

Miloš Vojvodić - drums

It is easy to get lost in the EYOT repertoire, you feel that you tread a road with no sign and no name but it doesn't seem to matter. Often it is about the building swell of themes but once again Slađan Milenović gave us something else, a slow creep that stopped any daydream in its tracks. It was like turning your head at a very slow pace, while trying not to let your eyes scan ahead, to be in this moment. Just to be here.

AL.

Alen Ilijic - Red Faces - Stone Upon Stone Festival, Nis, Serbia

Alen Ilijic

The work of Alen Ilijic divides opinion. He is polymath, composer, musician, artist and prolific thinker. His formative years were spent in England studying film music at City of Westminster College but home is now Serbia where he completed his education in composition, orchestration, electronic music and sound engineering at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade. During his studies in London, as a singer-songwriter and guitarist, Alen Ilijic formed the band Zealot and immediately made a big impact on the British underground scene as well as secruring himself a deal with record label BMI.

Alen Ilijic - piano

In the run up to Alen Ilijic's appearance at the inaugural Stone Upon Stone festival (17/04/2015) I had the pleasure of sharing his home and hospitality, alongside his wife, Milica. This gave me an insight into the bubbling creativity that drives Alen Ilijic, he pins his improvised and highly personal expression on sheet music that is heavily annotated and is a work of art in itself. Ilijic is a born innovator and it was both refreshing and electrifying to be near him. His love of English culture made him both an excellent translator and companion in my journey through the culture of Nis.

The 45-50 minute performance by Alen Ilijic at the Nis Symphony Orchestra hall was a real odyssey. It was adventurous and uncomfortable, it made some people feel so uneasy that they walked out, never to return. The stage was cast in a sickly red light, which played a claustrophobic refrain even before the music started. In fact it was silence that challenged us first, Ilijic stood stock still, only the rapid fire of camera clicks interrupting the tense air. The manifestation of his internalised thoughts flowed through into his fingertips and we too checked our own inner compasses. His hands lifted, swatting imaginary flies as though he was decomposing before our very eyes. What followed was other-worldly and although there was no hint of black magic here was a man possessed.

To think of it simply Alen Ilijic's performance consisted of two halves. The first with piano and second with guitar and amp. There were broken oohs and aahs which escaped the piano as Ilijic perched above it. It was the now which weighed most heavily, broken pieces of language exhaled from the mouth, the slash, the choke of the deep red light. We were held, it suffocated, the rhythm of our mouths gawped like fishes yet there was no sound from the audience. The scream and the words from Ilijic made us uncomfortable, one hand rolled across the piano while another fluttered under his chin. He whimpers as though calling for a mother or father, he was an animal. This is not a dream this is an awake state, a panting which threatens to tumble out all our emotions from within our guts.

Alen Ilijic - Red Faces

The music and theatre that erupted from the second half was a rapid fire of asymmetric popcorn firing in a pan. The amp becomes a instrument of torture as well as pleasure. Alen Ilijic's guitar hits us in waves with a pulsating gamut of sentiments. There is love and there is embarrassment alongside thoughts that make us feel uneasy. Is it acceptable to enjoy someone else's pain? I think about stopping the performance, I care about the man, I worry that he is unwell and on the verge of breaking mentally and physically. Then he rides his guitar like it were a surfboard and our red faces have smiles too.

We all walked out into the fresh April air stunned. We had just all witnessed and shared a period of time that none of us would forget. There were those who were weak at the knees and those that were trying to make sense of themselves. The last piece of red was the blood that caked the fingertips of Alen Ilijic. His commitment to the cause was never in doubt.

AL.

Majmoon - Stone Upon Stone Festival, Nis

Sebastian Meyhöfer

The presence of Munich based Majmoon at the Stone Upon Stone festival in Nis, Serbia owed as much to Art as it did to Music. When speaking of Art it is not talk of painted portraits or lush landscapes but the contemporary kind that is fueled by concept rather than beauty. The sounds come hand in hand with the visuals of Anton Kaun who is known for his haunting images for projection, performance and video.

Asmir Sabic

Think in terms of systems and ritual when considering Majmoon, for both these concepts contribute to the ideas of Asmir Sabic (guitar), Axel Wagner (drums,electronics), Josip Pavlov (guitar,bass,trumpet), Thomas Westner (guitar) and Sebastian Meyhöfer (violin,bass,xylophone). Their appearance at the Klub Feedback (16/04/2015) started with an attrition of grinding repetition that never abated but grew with each brick, upon brick, upon brick that they laid.

Axel Wagner - drums

 Imagine that you traced a loop with your finger on a page of paper, the shape is a upside down tear that crosses at the end. Imagine doing that again and again, traced and retraced, going round and around. Your body starts to lose it's fleshiness and the kinetics of being start to take over. What was once your heart beat is now the throb of an engine, your inner propeller ready to burst free. It never does, the machine's throb stays behind the walls with a sinister edge, like a revolver in the pocket. After the Robert Calvert style growl all we feel is the asymmetric click as our engines cool.

Thomas Westner

All is not high-octane as the violin of Sebastian Meyhöfer plays a slower pull. We escape the machine like Julia and Winston in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, looking out of the ruins of our paneless windows. Majmoon's sound is both cerebral and primitive. It elevates your perspective as though viewing our globe from a mile high, we watch the planet rotate slowly, the dawn light creeping in a line that bisects night from day. These musical themes splash across us like a birthmark of light, the visual projections of Anton Kaun are never far behind.

Josip Pavlov

Before long the loop is back again, more often than not Majmoon work as a team, tracing and retracing together. They work the docks like a group of men pulling a steamer's rope but there is always a thread that winds free. Toward the end of their set this loose canon was the ox like figure of Josip Pavlov. So penetrating was this combination of repetition and thrust that it cut the Feedback audience in half. The knife which cut the bread kept on going, slicing through the board and ultimately the table, who knows whether it will cut the earth between our feet too.

AL.

There - Stone Upon Stone Festival, Nis

Janko Džambas

True to its seedling roots the Stone Upon Stone festival went underground at the Klub Feedback with a performance by There in their hometown of Nis, Serbia. The club itself was seething with bodies, heat and smoke, in the darkest of conditions 5 men took to the stage. Projected upon them was a kaleidoscope of colour and patterns. A feast for the restless eye and this sketchers hands moved unseen and unfettered.


Uros Kostic - guitar

Headed by the charismatic stoicism of Janko Dzambas there was little to feel in the blackness except foreboding. The dapper attire and stiff upper lips of There represented a formality from another century but the music was very much cast in this time. Although modern it was a Grimm fairytale of a start with the twin guitars of Janko Dzambas and Uros Kostic chopping with their axes down indiscriminately in the dark.


Pavle Dinic - Keys

There is a cinematic thread to much that flowed out after the guitar chop, with a narrative that came from the hunched back of Pavle Dinic on keys. The rhythm section made sure the tide was forever building, there was a pressure that made it impossible to escape, yet the imagination did. The film which played across our minds was one of loneliness and chase. Running through empty corridors until the sense of solitariness became too much.


Luka Basic - drums

Introspection was the byword that would have escaped the lips if anything had been muttered. The circus lights pulsed in scything sabres of yellow and electric beams. The harsh pool which cascaded down upon Pavle Dinic gave him an orthodox beard of shadow, it pulled our eyes toward him as though a blessing was just moments away.

There is no communication between the players and the lights give us the animation which mirrors the music's energy. Spider webs of slippery eels pulsed over the 5 players but still our drummer Luka Basic languished in the dark recesses. The anthemic sound, the darkness and loudness of the venue suit the Stone Upon Stone's cutting edge. Despite the deadpan demeanour of There it didn't take long for their flavours to rupture and splatter over us.

Marko Mitić Čapa - Bass

The guitars broke the veins with their sawing themes but it was the bass of Marko Mitić Čapa who burst the dam. As we approached the end of their performance we rallied ourselves as an audience, creating that breakwater, for we were the stones in the raging river. Our bodies piled up to resist the punching blows from There, the blood pulsed in our ears, garbled pedalled voices persisted until our rubble collapsed. A thousand pin pricks of light pierced the smoky fug of the Klub Feedback and there was just a twinkling melody that persisted as though Labi Siffre had been locked in a music box.

AL.

Naked - Stone Upon Stone Festival, Nis, Serbia

Branislav Radojkovic - Bass

The balance between embracing tradition and striking out for a new promised land is one that occupies the thoughts of many bands. No more so than in Serbia where a new country and new music emerges from ruins and dreams. Forget romanticising these words as though they possessed the Technicolor of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, for we live now and listen now too.


Goran Milosevic - Drums

Belgrade foursome Naked gave us their own interpretation of this heady mix at the Symphony Orchestra Hall in Nis, Serbia for the opening night of the Stone Upon Stone festival (15/04/2015). The lynch pin is Branislav Radojkovic whose bass pumps deep into our veins, its viscosity is nearer to oil than blood but the passionate effects are just the same.

Each member of Naked strike you visually as individuals, representing a unique island race all of their own. You feel like Gulliver as you visit their worlds and instruments. Despite sitting at his drums Goran Milosevic mixes Jonathan Swift's giants with Dashiell Hammett's thin man, especially with fedora perched on his head. The third tune was his, ringing bells from Milosevic heralded an oncoming storm alongside the pied piper clarinet of  Ivan Teofilović. Despite a quickening tempo there was indeed a calm before the inevitable downpour, what followed was those huge pregnant drops of rain that bang on car bonnets and window pains with such resonance.

On our Chartreuse island lived a race of violinists and their king was Djordje Mijuskovic. His shovel hands played with such delicate touch and yet their breadth pulled us into his encompassing and suffocating warmth. His anthem was 'GreenBrown Eyes', unquestioningly a metaphor, for we never saw his pupils as they lay secreted under heavy lids. The tune's essence had a Charlie Chaplin gait, rounded and easy going. It had wandering feet and a generosity that our island monarch dished out to us, his devotees.



Djordje Mijuskovic - Violin

There was wildness to the archipelago we encountered next where the woodwind instruments roam. The Ben Gunn figure that greeted our Jim Hawkins' eyes weaved narratives with both saxophone and clarinet. Ivan Teofilović is the earthy pagan figure that plays with fire and dances his musical words in the flames.

It was our final island dweller that ruled the roost of all he surveyed, the heavy crush of Branislav Radojkovic's bass cut up the land that surrounded him. It gouged dark smears into the fertile melodies laid down by Mijuskovic, Teofilović and Milosevic. Through his playing and presence Radojkovic animated the black notes of music into an army of crawling beetles, such was their swarm that they were continually crushed underfoot, oozing their acrid and dark juices.

Ivan Teofilović - Clarinet

Do not be fooled into believing that Naked continually lurked under sooty and heavy skies for they were much more playful than that. Their sway and positive light emboldened the Stone Upon Stone audience and we felt we had just experienced an adventure with tales to tell. Not every pirate's chest had been opened in our minds but the promise of a cross on a treasure map kept us interested right up until the end.

If you would like to unearth Naked's latest album Nakedonia (NarRator Records) then it available HERE.

AL.

Stone Upon Stone Exhibition, Nis, Serbia

Lepa Brena Apartments and Alen Ilijic

Most festivals and gig write-ups require a back seat attitude to allow their readers the prefered perspective. On this occasion it is impossible as the Stone Upon Stone festival in Nis kicked off its 4 days of fare with an exhibition of sketches and artwork from these very pages. This new festival on the European music calendar was founded by musician Dejan Ilijic and poet Dalibor Popović, and proved  a great success in an age where fresh new music and ideas aren't necessarily embraced by the wider public.

Alen Ilijic

You'll excuse my first hand experiences and revelations amongst this post as this was my first time on Serbian soil and I was wide-eyed with wonder as I rolled up before the Lepa Brena apartments in Nis on the 15th April. It was a lucky break, for I had been thrust straight into the hands of composer Alen Ilijic and his wife, Art curator Milica. There was a chance to immediately slide straight into the remnants of Tito's communist legacy, fascinating to find social 'towerblock' housing flourishing as children played in the courtyards and sounds of the city drifted into the high-rise's open window.

Milica Ilijic

Not all is rosy in the garden and Serbia sits under a cloud, many of the people suffer due to corrupt hands and the legacies of the war as Yugoslavia broke apart. It is the perfect location for positive minds that are fertile with ideas and fuelled by injustices to create a new festival such as this. The people I encountered along the way were generous to a fault, embracing a stranger such as I and taking them to their hearts. Kebabs and Rakija were aplenty and in the Ilijic's hands English was continually spoken and a kind or informative word was never far away.

Mauk - Dragan Miokovic

Although I'll be writing about the acts I sketched and experienced  over the coming days the Stone Upon Stone festival started with our Art Exhibition (14/04/2015). Housed in the splendour of the Hush-Hush lounge bar in the centre of Nis, this is a popular hideaway from the throng of the main city streets. On the walls were paintings of Daria Khulesh, Andre Canniere, Oren Marshall, Seb Rochford, Mihaly Borbely, Jake McMurchie, Pete Judge, Michael Janisch, Tom Mason, Vincent Payan, Dejan Ilijic, Jacqui Dankworth, George Crowley, Peter Lee, Steve Pringle, Larry Bartley, Ferg Ireland, Jim Barr, Benet Mclean, Thea Wilsher, Melissa James and many more. All were sketched live on the London Jazz scene and include drawings of the band EYOT who were captured in my sketchbook when they played at the Jazz Café in March 2014.

Bojan Randjelovic

The tiller of Hush Hush is held by legendary bon viveur Mauk or Dragan Miokovic in the house formerly owned by Bata Anastasijevic, who remains one of the greats in Serbian jazz. Mauk keeps the welcome warm and wet with a plentiful supply of Rakija, the waspish plum brandy. It was the perfect place to meet people and I got the lowdown on the Serbian creative scene from artist Jovana Mitic.

Vladimir Djordjevi

After a few fortifying brandies I gave an interview to Vladimir Djordjevi and Bojan Randjelovic who were making a documentary about the Stone Upon Stone festival. Nis was a hive of creative minds when you looked close enough and is a place worth visiting if you're prepared to scratch the surface. Randjelovic is a case in point, not only is he handy with a tripod but is also a member of infamous Nis punk outfit Novembar.



Dragan Videnovic

There were many faces to sketch within the 4 days, 3 nights and 6 bands
but one who immediately made an impression was journalist Dragan Videnovic from Zona Plus TV. His English was impeccable especially since taking a brief sojourn in London with the BBC and during my interview on Zona Plus there was depth and knowledge on both the wider international scene and the burgeoning music scene right under his nose.

Dalibor Popović

Nis is a difficult place to launch a new festival, especially one that skirts on the fringes of jazz as the famous Nisville festival has flourished here since 1981. There is an appetite though amongst younger listeners for a new sound, one that is epitomised by the Stone Upon Stone festival. Now that the hard work has been done by Dejan Ilijic and Dalibor Popović we are ready for the years ahead. It will be a force for creativity with new acts pushing through and established bands willing to trial new music for audiences ready to fly by the seat of their pants.

AL.

Alen Ilijic - I Have No CoordiNATION

Courtesy of http://www.ninetyandninerecords.com/

Normally when writing about the art that adorns album covers we have to consider both the artist who created the artwork and those responsible for the music. Here we have an album and artist who is responsible for the whole process. Alen Ilijic is the man, I Have No CoordiNATION released on Ninety and Nine records in May 2014 is the album. He breaks the linear relationship between Music and Art too, neither one inspired the other, the cart doesn't come before the horse because both are one and the same.

Alen Ilijic

Alen Ilijic was born in the Macedonian 'Las Vegas' Gevgelija in 1975 and is both an avant-garde composer and multimedia artist. Formative years were spent in England studying film music at City of Westminster College but home is now Serbia where he completed his education in composition, orchestration, electronic music and sound engineering at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade.

Zelot by Alen Ilijic

Although the album, I Have No CoordiNATION, is a retrospective of Ilijic's talents over more than a decade (1999-2013) it is the album's art that represents a slap in the face of time itself. It signifies the moment that Ilijic woke from surgery, and before his eyes appeared a bright red cross as the nurse cojouled him. I am no doctor but this album asks that you awaken your senses too. This artwork was shown at the ’NOISYGENES’ exhibition (Belgrade 2014),which included abstract-expressionist painting and performance to help both viewer and artist examine the concept of noise.

Alen Ilijic told me about some of his inspirations, including a photo of a Victorian ’Penny sit-up’ that appears on the back of the CD.



Penny sit-up

"The story about homeless shelter was very unusual, and I immediately equated to it personally. What made this shelter unique was that in exchange for a penny, clients would be allowed to sit on a bench in a reasonably warm room all night long. Moreover, they were not allowed to lie down and sleep on the bench. At the same time, I imagined the sound of their talk and the shelter in general, ranging trough various dynamic levels and other musical parameters which can be found in my compositions."

Alen Ilijic - Gavrilov put

A favourite from the album is My Suspicious Look which holds the tension and drama from Ilijic's film score training. The listener occupies a space where the other inhabitants actions are amplified. Casual steps take on an unknown significance, as does that of fumbling fingers in a pocket or the stirring of a cup. A magnetic field keeps the protagonists apart so that deepening shadows and hate are also exaggerated. An escape is needed, a crashing of incidental delights as we run to a space where our thoughts are our own once again.

Listen to the title track of Alen Ilijic's I Have No CoordiNATION below and keep and eye out for a new book about his work by art historian, curator and Alen's wife, Milica Ilijic.

AL.