Author: Urban Bolta
Artist: Bajaga i Instruktori
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2012
Length: 46:22
Rating: 4/5
Momčilo Bajagić – Bajaga, one of the biggest and most respected musicians in the former Yugoslavia, came back in 2012 with a new album. After a seven-year break! After a creatively inspired eighties, Bajaga has spent the last two decades easing off the gas and spacing his albums further apart, but seven years since »Šou počinje u ponoć« (2005) is still the longest studio gap of his career so far. But don’t worry, no creative curtain has fallen over Bajaga and his Instruktori crew, because the long wait has paid off!
For the Slovenian and Croatian markets the new record came out on Dallas, half a year after Dallas reissued his first four albums, setting the stage for a fresh comeback of this much-loved Serbian act in our neck of the woods.
The album »Daljina, dim i prašina« rounds out at nine tracks, the number he’s known for, with a shorter radio version of the song Još Jednom added at the end as the cherry on top. Alongside Bajaga i Instruktori’s ninth album comes Bajaga’s poetry collection »Vodič kroz snove«, a compilation of all his lyrics to date (of course Kad Hodaš, which he wrote back in his Riblja Čorba days, is in there too), which for the first time puts it all in one place and proves that we’re talking not just about a good musician, but an above-average gifted lyricist too.
To his trademark formula of carefree mixing of a colorful palette of genres, from rock, jazz, blues and swing all the way to pop, Bajaga with Instruktori has now added a strong emotional undertone on »Daljina, dim i prašina«, creating his tenderest album yet. I can’t help drawing a parallel with his former band Riblja Čorba, who three years ago, with their latest album to date, »Minut sa njom«, also made the most sentimental record of their thirty-year career.
The album opens with the moody title track Daljina, dim i prašina, which stirs up positive feelings in the listener with its playful acoustic touches, even though Bajaga usually feels more at home in melancholic waters, and he wades right into them with the next track, Suza. The horn section takes center stage here, breathing soul into this easygoing-paced song and driving home its love-themed message even more. On Mala uska haljina, Bajaga, as so many times before in his career, shyly flirts with jazz, and with the extra ambient presence of the Hammond organ he sinks even deeper into a retro sound. The track is an interesting excursion into the unknown and shows Instruktori as an artistically matured collective, one that isn’t content with naively walking along its own well-trodden path, but keeps looking for new challenges by sailing beyond the pop-rock field.
The middle of the album is its strongest stretch, packed with potential radio hits and presenting Bajaga as an outstanding interpreter of love songs, without a shred of the pathos that usually shapes romantic tunes. Bajaga, a superb lyricist, wraps seemingly simple messages in the cellophane of ambiguity, managing to squeeze a deeper meaning out of what looks like a well-worn love theme. Vreme and Ako treba da je kraj, with their instantly catchy choruses, are two of the album’s highlights. This is also the place to mention the crystal-clear production, which with sterile precision delivers a radio-friendly sound, though at the expense of the grit that’s almost essential in rock’n’roll! In Stari put za Novi Sad the author recalls, over the rhythm of a slow blues, the city where he spent part of his youth. Blues is probably the genre that long ago convinced him to pick up a guitar, so an orthodox blues idyll is the only logical choice for nostalgic memories of his childhood. Od sumraka do svitanja is the liveliest song on the album, putting a smile on the listener’s face with its easygoing pop-rock tempo and melodic multi-part chorus. The constant shifting of moods, shaped by a wide range of genres all thrown into the same classroom, hits one of its peaks in Još jednom, the longest composition on the record, which with its Latin rhythm and acoustic backing delivers a sharp emotional turn.
It seems that of all the »mainstream« so-called Yugo rock bands, Bajaga i Instruktori are the ones keeping pace with the times, since they aren’t hung up on flirting with their eighties legacy and would rather follow their own artistic development than reheat old soup. The years have brought their share, the guitars have stepped aside for more atmospheric instruments, making room for Bajaga’s lyrical, confessional school, which in its sensitivity reaches further than ever before. The long wait for a new album has paid off, then: it offers everything we fans could have expected from Bajaga, and then some, because in its artistic sophistication »Daljina, dim i prašina« marks a new step toward maturity on his musical path.
Line-up
Momčilo Bajagić – vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, harmonica
Miroslav Cvetković – bass guitar, backing vocals
Saša Lokner – keyboards
Žika Milenković – backing vocals, acoustic guitar
Čeda Macura – drums, backing vocals
Marko Nježić – electric guitar, backing vocals
Production
Vojislav Aralica
Track list
1. Daljina, dim i prašina
2. Suza
3. Mala uska haljina
4. Vreme
5. Ako treba da je kraj
6. Stari put za Novi Sad
7. Od sumraka do svitanja
8. Još jednom
9. Bežiš od mene ljubavi (bonus)
10. Još jednom (radio edit – bonus)
