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.

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.