The story of Mostar Sevdah Reunion is a story about success - against
all odds. It's a story about group effort and energy, but above all
it's a story about one man's persistence. Dragi Sestic, their producer,
is one of those singular and yet somehow typical post-war Balkan characters:
one of those people who came out of nowhere and, despite the fact that
he had everything working against him, did something special and extraordinary.
After surviving a bloody war and destruction, the people of Bosnia found
themselves faced with a different sort of test: paradoxically, the post-war
depression and apathy proved to be almost as challenging and difficult
- especially for those involved in anything creative or artistic. Yet
Sestic, a non-professional musician and music fanatic, managed to put
his band together - a group of people with completely different psychological,
personal, and ethnic backgrounds; in other words, people with very little
in common except for one thing - an endless love of music. And that,
probably, was their saving grace, in more ways than one.
For the last couple of years Mostar Sevdah Reunion have been sailing
the unsure waters of the international music scene, becoming ever more
successful. Even more impressive than the success they have enjoyed
of late, though, is that despite the above-metioned differences the
core of the band has remained intact all this time. The drive and the
'fire' were never an issue - this is a band of consummate pro's - but
one should keep in mind that the extra-musical matters in the post-war
Mostar and Bosnia-Herzegovina are so discouraging, and apathy so overwhelming
that just putting together a band was a move which was by many considered
to be mad, given the obstacles of the so-called 'transitional period'
the country found itself in.
They persisted, recording three successful albums in the process, and
played many shows across Europe. At one point it seemed that the band,
due to some personal problems, wouldn't be able to hold together much
longer; but common sense prevailed and now they're still here, stronger
than ever, with a brand new record to promote.
Although their previous two works were successful, if somewhat 'experimental',
collaborations with other artists (namely Saban Bajramovic and Ljiljana
Buttler) it is good to see the band coming back to their original love
and fascination - the 'sevdah' music, that authentic Bosnian music genre
or, as the band would say, 'a state of mind'. If their first album represented,
in a way, a new beginning in both lives of the musicians involved and,
on a larger scale, the modern Balkan culture - it meant a small victory
over unfavourable circumstances and disadvantages at the time - then
the new record, the splendidly titled "A secret gate", confirms
the musicians' maturity and is a demonstration of new highs, artistically
and performance-wise.
Let's talk about it then.
There has always been a high level of symbolism involved in the work
of Mostar Sevdah Reunion and here we can detect it already in the first
song: "Sto li mi se Radobolja muti" ("Why is Radobolja
so troubled?") - the rhythm-pattern is held by beating two stones
- one from the Neretva-river and the other, indeed, from Radobolja,
its affluent. Outsiders won't make much out of this, but in the local
context it speaks volumes - each river runs through one part of a city
that had been divided politically for more than ten years. The three
musicians playing on the track are of three different ethnicities -
a Croat, a Serb, and a Bosniac (Muslim) - naturally, they're here thanks
to their skills, not their ethnic backgrounds, but the fact that the
musicians involved belong to different ethnic groups has a huge symbolic
and practical significance in the country where the question of 'identity'
has had played such a dark role and has led to such terrible consequences.
The playing and the togetherness of the musicians on the record is unabashed
laughter in the face of disgusting politics, and a sort of victory over
its intentions.
If we're to take this gesture out of the local context and transpose
it concentrically first to the country, region and so on, then we'll
understand one of the prime intentions of the Mostar Sevdah Reunion
project - beside the most important one, which is to play the music
from one's own tradition and culture, of course - and that is to show
the open, communicative nature of this music, to show how things, musically,
don't differ as much as one would think, or, in the words of Dragi Sestic,
showing 'how small the world basically is'. What Sestic is trying to
say here is very important for the potential listener: although some
of the stuff the MSR are doing might sound strange or 'exotic' (oh,
the dreaded word!) to the untrained ear, it might surprise you by the
familiarity of its elements if you scratch the surface only slightly.
Probably the best example of this is "Djevo, djevo" ("Oh,
maiden"). I've often heard the theory that what MSR play is a Bosnian
(or Balkanic) blues - the word 'blues' being the 'lowest common denominator'
here: in this song the two worlds, both the local and the original American
blues, are literally side by side - the feel is the same, and the guitarist
Miso Petrovic even plays the sargija, a traditional string instrument,
using the 'slide' technique.
The same blues theory could also be applied to one of the best songs
on the album - "Cudna jada od Mostara grada"("Strange
pain from the city of Mostar"), sung by Nedjo Kovacevic, the band's
violin player. The old tune usually played in 2/4 time here is set onto
powerful, steel-like 4/4 'western' beat. The fierce hypnotic rendition
with the dervish-like chanting in the background glued to the incessant
funky groove underlines the feeling of deep, unpredictable forces in
both the music and the culture it belongs to.
Nedjo Kovacevic, while we're at it, is an 'old cat'. He has been in
the profession for a long time, and has decades of musical experience
behind him: he's spent years building his chops by playing cafés
throughout the country, he played some of the best (old Yugoslav) capital's
restaurants but also the dumps, often on a 'minimum wage'. He was even
a regular member of the national radio and TV orchestra for a while.
His singing and playing reflect all this - a man without bitterness,
his style is self-assured, without being arrogant, his singing has a
strange, almost naughty, mischievous boyish joy to it, and the songs,
carefully chosen to fit his character, are often full of double entendres
and innuendo.
As far as his playing goes - it's really unpretentious, his violin both
a rhythm and lead instrument - when Kovacevic plays a solo one can immediately
hear his lovely fills, short, well-balanced and indispensable within
the whole musical canvas. Producer Sestic told me that the rest of the
local musicians' community loves Kovacevic's lack of instrumental self-indulgence,
and added that he knows 'very few musicians with such a sense for detail'.
Like some of the best artists, Mostar Sevdah Reunion are also a group
of musical archaeologists: on every record they dug up some forgotten
gem, and here they did it again. Anterija is an instrumental played
by the band's virtuoso, the accordionist Mustafa Santic. The piece is
an accompaniment to a local style of circle-dance ('kolo') from Blagaj,
a small city near Mostar. This fantastically rich and effective little
number has literally been saved from oblivion by appearing on the album.
'Anterija' is actually a name for the upper part of a woman's dress,
and this furious dance tune sounds like the musical version of the local
female garb, it's as if the accordionist is giving a description of
the dress's decorative elements.
This seems the right moment to note something: The Mostar Sevdah Reunion
band is a band of extreme individuals, if there ever was one. Still,
the first among his peers, primus inter pares, is the man who played
the aforementioned song - Mustafa Santic. Santic, a classically trained
musician, had already demonstrated his skills as a both accordion and
clarinet virtuoso but here he proved to be also a great singer. His
style is absolutely authentic but Santic also manages to acknowledge
his debt to some of the classical 'sevdalinka' singers. It was such
a smart decision to give him so much space on the album. One should
pay special attention to the songs Santic is performing - his vibrato
is as impressive as his voice control, his delivery immaculate.
Ilijaz Delic, 'the man in the white suit', and the absolute star of
the band, is in his usual unique mood. "With every song he loses
five minutes of his life.', a journalist remarked once of the Mostar
vedette. That sort of sums it up, nicely. Delic gives everything of
himself in every performance, he does not spare himself. He uses the
whole of his worn and weary body and soul. Some purists complained about
his vocal style - there has been some bad rap about the fact that it's
not completely in tradition of the classic 'sevdalinka'. Maybe it's
not - but what it is, is even better: Delic is breaking the rules as
he goes along, his performance full of expression; he doesn't give a
toss about the formal stuff, but literally gives it all. At the end
of some of the songs - one almost fears for his well-being.
Being acquainted with the band's previous records I thought that the
guitarist duo Miso Petrovic - Sandi Durakovic, the 'Siamese twins' of
the Mostar Sevdah Reunion - did exceptionally well here. They've been
together for a long while so their playing is absolutely compatible
- Durakovic is a strong, solid rhythm player and Petrovic is one of
those musicians in the tradition of imaginative, individual soloists
- in that sense probably his moments on the 'Secret gate' is gentle,
lyrical (almost Knopfleresque) solo in 'Put putuje Latif aga' ('Latif
aga's traveling'). It's a lesson in self-restraint and control some
much more famous players could only dream of. Wonderful, melodic stuff.
The whole musical construction would have been diminished without two
members - the bassist Kosta Latinovic and the drummer Sead Avdic. Latinovic,
who plays berde (upright bass with frets) along with Avdic - a newcomer
in the band but a veteran of the national music scene, lay a rock-solid
foundation for the band to either float freely when the music requires
or just to dig together into one of those incessant, often odd-time
grooves. Latinovic, with his concrete-hard string hitting is particularly
impressive - he even gets a deserved solo-spot during "Anterija",
which, with an upcoming European tour, should become one of the live
highlights.
Sead Avdic, using only basic elements of his kit - a snare, a floor
tom, and a tambourine - gets everything out of this reduced but perfectly
sufficient choice of weapons. His style shows all distinctive traits
of an experienced studio muso - there's no element of showing-off, and
everything is in the service of the song, not the other way around.
The song 'Mujo djogu' ('Mujo leads his white horse') performed by the
debutante Almira Medunjanin is a welcome novelty - her crisp, crystal-clear
ethereal voice brings a new freshness placed between the Delic's rough
and Santic's high-pitched vibrant vocals. To be able to sing this song
- the vocal is for the first half accompanied only with the percussions
- absolute perfect pitch is required. Ms. Medunjanin delivers completely.
There is a nice formal game happening here: the last word of every verse
is also the first one of the next - the wordplay is in the fact that
the significance of the words changes constantly (it's completely untranslatable
too, no need to mention).
Speaking of the style and poetics: All the lyrics except one ('Hanka'
which was written by Rade Jovanovic, a local poet, and is based on a
real person, a local 'femme fatale') were written by anonymous poets,
and as usual have been wrongly dubbed as 'folk songs' - they're not,
it's just that the poets are unjustly forgotten.
The best example of this fine poetic sense is 'Okreni se niz djul bastu'
('Turn around the rose garden'); besides being one of the most yearning
and heartfelt ballads of the entire Bosnian songbook it's fantastically
crafted too, musically (the ascending chords follow the movement of
the poet's love interest) and lyrics-wise - the anonymous poet uses
some very refined poetic techniques (the image of the rose has a very
nice touch of sensuality in the context of the song) and even plays
with the synaesthesia ('the lips of honey/ black eyes/ you, emerald
of mine').
That the sense of love ache, endearment and weakness people in love
feel is beautifully underlined here with Santic's subtle and utterly
controlled clarinet solo, only adds to the probably most delicately
arranged and performed song on the album. Only the stunning, haunting
"Evo srcu mome radosti" ("There goes my joy"), which
closes the album, in its juxtaposition of music and lyrics, with Delic's
heartbreaking delivery, is superior - a song so beautiful I found myself
unable to write about it.
There is something intimate and warm about this music - listening to
these old songs, especially the ballads, I felt that specific atmosphere
of the Bosnian cities and I had to think of the paintings by their famous
artist Safet Zec - the peeling facades of houses, small windows with
flower pots, linen drying in the yard. I think there's poetry in that,
even if some may find it a tad sad. I don't agree: the great Croatian
poet Tin Ujevic has a famous verse "the beauty of our splendid
poverty" - it is probably the best description of the world I'm
talking about here, and I feel nothing but love and nostalgia for it.
Allow me another personal note here: to some of us who live in exile,
Mostar Sevdah Reunion's first album was invaluable. It helped us through
some difficult and long Northern winters - I hope the new record will
have a similar soothing effect on its future listeners and fans regardless
of their origins. I don't think there is a better recommendation. I
hope it will bring them some joy or allow them to sing their sorrows
through with these songs, maybe give them some consolation.
That's what the best music is for anyway.
Ðorde Matic
