Artist: Mostar Sevdah Reunion
Label: Snail Records
Release: 2013
Runtime: 62:56
Rating: 4/5
The Bosnian soul mirrors the land it grew from, all furrowed and petrified, lashed by sharp, merciless history. Split by religion, it has still managed, in rare moments after the bloodshed, to live together peacefully, tenderly, lovingly. After the recent Bosnian slaughter, plenty of people doubted that coexistence would ever be possible again. That the differences can be bridged, at least for a short while, and that ethnic, religious and cultural divides can be forgotten, was first shown and proven by the progressive minds, as many of them as were left in Bosnia and Herzegovina at all. I mean artists, intellectuals, poets, writers and the heralds of Bosnian arabesques, melodics, melos – the musical troubadours of a land that is so near and yet so far. The Bosnian parallel universe is a place some people love to wave away and never think about. Once the broadcasts of war fury, dying and the destruction of monuments went off the air (among them the bridge linking the left and right banks of the Neretva, the one that arched between the banks of Mostar), clouds of oblivion wrapped the whole country, that divided, no, tripled Bosnian political cauldron. People slipped into oblivion too, along with their stories, their feelings and the traditional tunes you may have heard once, maybe even grew up with. So, not to forget that we’re all fallible, bloody under the skin, and alike in feeling, longing, loving and surrendering, modern-day troubadours, singers, preservers and nurturers of melos are more than necessary.
A big part of the Mostar soul is also kept alive by the men from all the winds, Mostar Sevdah Reunion. They started singing their songs at the height of the suffering, and after the war storm they were the first to rise above the unbridgeable differences, play, and through open vocal cords unbolt the doors to the very core of their Bosnian hearts. The Bosnian soul is akin to the Gypsy one. Through similar melodic slides, rhythms and an addiction to the beauty of dance and deep lyricism, the men of 21st-century sevdah have built, with eight outstanding records, monuments of moving pictures, whispers and heartbeats that honor the city of Mostar, and above all the people without whom the city wouldn’t be what it is, or rather what it was. Mostar is a city with a rich but painful history and a palette of different cultures that lived side by side, loved each other, fought each other, yearned and searched for paths to a better tomorrow. Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims sing sevdalinkas, the typical Bosnian songs of the Ottoman Empire, born at the crossroads of different cultures. They’re love songs about unrequited love, songs about longing for a better life and for dreams to come true.
And those dreams need the right sonic backdrop, and the one the auditorium of the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar can conjure is just right. After turbulent lineup changes, and a split of its essence into two bands with the same name but a divided soul, Mostar Sevdah Reunion has landed on one of the most refined lineups in its history. Alongside the visionary leader Dragi Šestić stand the outstanding acoustic guitar maestro Mišo Petrovič, rhythmically backed by the solid yet sensual rhythm man Sandi Duraković. The heartbeat is laid down on tape by the just-jazzy-enough drummer Senad Trnovac. From the side you can hear the tender yet passionate violin of Vanja Radonja and the delicate touches of piano keys groaning under the fingers of Gabrijel Prusina, while the voice of the band belongs to the exceptional orator of Bosnian sevdah, Nermin Alukić Čerkez. This time the door to the world of dreaminess and beauty wasn’t shut on the superb guest musicians either. They pass the mic around and breathe character, the Mostar soul, into the record Tales From A Forgotten City.
The overture to the journey is the dreamy voice of Hurmeta Jugo, singing the traditional Omere prvo gledanje – a lament about doomed love that flows into the achingly sad Što te nema?. The lament burrows into a soul that feels every verse, every bit of longing, every ounce of passion. The hyacinth from under the dew brings comfort, but it doesn’t take away the question »Why aren’t you here?«. The nightingale sings around Mostar, and the soundscape, with the violin alongside, brings a wonderful mood – Bulbul pjeva okolo Mostara is a hymn to the most beautiful girl in Mostar, a song of admiration spiced with eroticism: Tvoja usta sva od djula rana, / Tvoja njedra još nemilovana. With its sensual tenderness the violin cranks up the playfulness, and in the fourth track, Namka, over fiery guitar and a male-female dialogue, it colors a crazy infatuation. Namka is in love with the singer Alija and would like to marry him, but her love is unrequited, because he’s in love with Minkica, whom he’s going to abduct… A weeping violin sketches Namka’s pain at the bitter realization that Alija will never be hers… Then the warm keyboards carry us straight into the lament Emina – unrequited, sincere love for the beautiful Emina lasts until death and leaves behind only an empty jasmine garden. Djaurko mila is a comforting, warm song that fills the heart with longing for closeness and an embrace. A virtuoso guitar and crickets carry us off into a warm Mostar night, where a caring heart yearns for Fata… Djela Fato, djela zlato ramps up the longing for the touch of two bodies and two souls. The violin paints the dusk coming with the sunset – Akšam geldi sings of the lovely face of a beloved, loved immeasurably but in vain by a poor man without dreams… The keyboards sketch tears… Omere prvo gledanje is sung heart-wrenchingly by Anja Rikalo. Laku noć is the last track on the album, a farewell steeped in eternal questions: Why is my heart crying? Will it ever stop crying? Will you come to my grave? When the sun sets, night falls. May it be gentle.
The album Tales From A Forgotten City is innovative and brings a freshness to the musical space. It’s been a long time since music carried this much passion, melancholy, inspiration, symbolism and hope. Every cell in your body vibrates with energy as you listen to sevdalinkas dressed up in blues. The beauty of this ancient music seeps into soul and body. Thanks to the lyrics translated into English, the rich poetry can reach everyone, and as it fuses with top-notch melodies it turns into an archetypal story that all of us live through. Tales from a forgotten city are like a flower forcing its way through stone toward freedom. Whoever listens to the record attentively will feel the tenderness and the bittersweet scent of that flower. And it resonates and falls into harmony with time and space, and in the nexus of the universe past and future blur their border. The stone crumbles and weeps, and instead of hard, rigid meter, there’s more and more in what we hear than a handful of elusive softness and dreaminess. The curtains of oblivion are falling, and from the mist along the Neretva banks, images glide before half-closed eyes: sun-scorched streets, bustle, whispers, murmurs and exclamations of life from long-forgotten cities, souls and people. And here sevdah, more than 300 years old, breathes in youthfully with bluesy, Gypsy and jazzy lungs, transforms into the music of the whole world, the whole universe, and the differences between the culturally and politically split loners shrink and vanish. Reconciliation is possible, and a mental return to the world of oriental scales and Balkan tales of feeling, longing, loving, passion and dying becomes a necessity. Also because of the beauty and the elusive meter of 21st-century sevdah.
Lineup
Mišo Petrović – lead guitar
Sandi Duraković – rhythm guitar
Nermin Alukić Čerkez – vocals and guitar
Marko Jakovljević – double bass, rhythm guitar
Senad Trnovac – drums and percussion
Vanja Radonja – violin
Gabrijel Prusina – keyboards
Guest musicians:
Mehmed Velagić – accordion
Jesenko Krpo – bass prim, mandolin and rhythm guitar
Vladimir Mičković – vocals (tracks 2 & 5)
Kristina Sulaver – vocals (track 4)
Anja Rikalo – vocals (track 9)
Dino Šoše – vocals (track 4)
Hermeta Jugo – vocals (track 1)
Production
Dragi Šestić
Tracklist
- Intro Hurmeta
- Što te nema?
- Bulbul pjeva okolo Mostara
- Namka
- Emina
- Djaurko mila
- Djela Fato
- Akšam gledi
- Omere prvo gledanje
- Laku noć
