On May 28th, Buda Musique will release Disko Telegraf, the long-awaited debut album by Romanian group Balkan Taksim. Today we have the pleasure of sharing their video for the new single ‘Lunca’, a “simple” pure love story.
The video was filmed in the southern countryside of Romania, almost in the same spot where the original song /story is based which took place a long, long time ago.
After his bride’s mysterious disappearance, the groom wanders aimlessly, searching for her. What he finds instead, in the middle of nowhere, is music in a suitcase (a wind-up gramophone). The travelling soul of a minstrel watches him closely, from the waterside. His eerie and unworldly tune summons the groom into the unknown. In the end, the music box leads the man towards the exit, towards his lost love.
Speaking of the track the band say: “With some musical quotes from a traditional Southern Romanian song, Lunca is about love. But the lovers have already left the wild place where they consumed their lust, so the narrator-singer can only rhetorically ask what happened there, by the riverside.”
Balkan Taksim, as demonstrated here, take tradition and deliver it with a unique modern twist. Lunca is both mesmerising and haunting, a tasteful blend of electronica, psychedelia and tradition that gives their melodies and rhythms not only a rich and engaging feel but also a fascinating edge that makes them quite unlike anyone else. Hypnotic Balkan Folktronica…
About Disk Telegraf
Disko Telegraf was recorded in its entirety in Sașa’s and Alin’s home studios in Bucharest over the past two years. The album is described as an emotional Balkan rollercoaster which has its roots in ideas from many years ago when Sașa travelled alone through the Balkans, spending a large amount of time in Anatolia. All these experiences marked him deeply and contributed decisively to the birth of this album.
“I remember the powerful moment when I discovered the family of the baglama – the Turkish saz (a stringed instrument). It happened in a small town’s colourful market, in the Aegean part of Turkey. That impression made me buy a saz, later on, in Konya, the unforgettable capital of The Whirling Dervishes. There, people from various layers of Turkish society tried to help me understand tiny bits of their music and customs. One day I visited a derviș and the next day a hairdresser who was playing the ney. Some other times darbuka players from various shops showed me their skills. In my spare time, I was recording various sounds of the city – even the calls for prayer.
“The weddings that I witnessed in the streets of Konya made me rethink the relation we had in Romania with both the agrarian and the communist past of our region. And not only because of the ”traditional” gunshots that could be easily heard on top of the sounds of the elektro-saz. No…
“Some years ago, in the Balkans, I had the privilege to record stories and songs of the Aromanian community. I could sometimes feel, be it in the Aromanian, Bulgarian or Macedonian villages, some traces of their Ottoman past, mixed with the Slavic ancient customs and Latin words.
“And there it was – the music, sung by that old couple in Velingrad or played on mandolin in Kruševo, in a unique and beautiful house, filled with photographs.
“Voices of kids having fun in the streets, stories and songs, the sheep going into their sheds.
“Memories of the Serbian villagers who taught me how to make goat cheese, somewhere near the Danube, are inextricably mixed with the layered sounds of both Romanian and Serbian music from a religious feast in August.
“I think of the last rural cobza players from North Moldavia, with their stories and tangled explanations. My strong belief that I was going to learn something from them, my obsession for finding old peasant instruments, the kind that nobody makes anymore. And, yes, I’ll always remember that fiddler who fell asleep right next to me, having already had one too many, early in the morning.
“I still keep those goose feather cobza plectrums I was given by the old lăutar Constantin, as he no longer had his instrument around. Thinking how he sold it years ago still made him a bit melancholic.
“Old photographs, plastic flowers, cellphones and plum brandy.
“Things from the past become things of the future.”
Sașa-Liviu Stoianovici/ Balkan Taksim
‘Lunca’ is out now.
‘Disko Telegraf’is now available for pre-order on Double LP, CD, and Digital.
Photo Credit: Miluţă Flueraş