After more than two years finally some new material from one of the best labels in Serbia: Discom. The label’s mission is to bring »unknown music from the former Yugoslavia« to the turntables. After the essential records of Max Vincent and the compilations »Yugoslavian Space Program« and »Du Du Archive 1984-1989« it is again: mission accomplished! Between Ljubljana and Belgrade a lot of good music has been created, which, due to its independent position, could serve itself in the »West« as well as in the »East«. This hybridity once again sets the tone. Miša Blam, who was born in Belgrade in 1947 and died there in 2014, was an obsessed music lover who was not only classically trained – and also played in Karajan’s orchestra – but was also a jazz musician, concert organizer and music theorist. Now this sounds quickly like cerebral music, but far from it. Already the opener »Dobro Jutro« zooms light as a feather like Italian funk with its key sounds. In addition, it rumbles, bubbles, crawls and taps from and on various percussion instruments and never comes to rest on the almost four minutes even briefly. Even during the relaxed piano solo, which fits unproblematically in the jazz garb into the overall work. »Good Night«, meanwhile, has something of a long-forgotten Curtis Mayfield break – on three liters of black tea. Still, the highlight is the eight minutes of »Gorila«. Actually just a string of five solos (saxophone, guitar, electric piano, bass and ARP Odyssey) the track is a much too short journey through the history of funk.
Linda Smith
Nothing Else Matters
Captured Tracks