Kultura / Culture
do it faster, but it never does happen faster. I release a new album every six or seven years, and the seventh year since my previous album is already coming to an end. I will hopefully complete the new album in 2022. It’s only halfway through the album that I realise where I’m going, which way I’m travelling and what I want. I'm still not even halfway through the al- bum. I always start by letting go, as though on a slide, and along the way I hunt down the balance and mean- ing of my work.” You always say that you re- ally love Belgrade. What is it that you love in a city that seemingly differs greatly from your own Ljubljana? “Those of us who lived in Yugo- slavia understood Belgrade as an im- portant centre for the over 20 mil- lion inhabitants of that country as a public. Belgrade has always been im- portant and always will be, in every sense, and particularly as a centre of the arts, music and film. That was how those who lived in Austro-Hun- gary felt about Vienna. If you man- aged to so something in Belgrade, that meant you’d succeeded in do- ing something regional and moved beyond your local box. I still see it that way today. The time you spend in a city, and with some people, includes some happenings and emotions that bind you to that city. In Belgrade I’ve experienced a lot of beautiful things, which is probably why I love it. Bel- grade accepted me, and I leapt into that embrace with the greatest joy!” And, of course, what would be “musts” for us to visit, see and experience in your hometown of Ljubljana? “Ljubljana has bloomed over the past 20 years, like the whole of Slove- nia. It’s as though someone assem- bled the Lego blocks correctly. They’ve never been better or more beautiful. Ljubljana is clean, cultivated for liv- ing in, and it’s slower than Belgrade, and I like that because I’m also slow. It’s the right place for a tranquil af- ternoon of coffee and drinks, for a romantic evening. And its name is such because it’s linked to love and romance. I feel that in Ljubljana.”
gan Bjelogrlić? It seems as though the music has gained a life of its own and broken out of the frame of “film score” music? “My music doesn’t have mag- ic, only sweat and tears. The mag- ic comes at the end, while working you get lost in the process and don’t have objective detachment. It’s on- ly by looking back that you see what you’ve done. If someone had told me “that’s the worst music I've ever heard” while I was still working on it, I’d have told them they were right and it also seems that way to me. On- ly in hindsight do you see that you’ve done something unrepeatable.” What impressions did you take away from your collab- orations on the production of popular U.S. TV show CSI Miami and HBO’s Span- ish romantic comedy show Foodie Love. What new ex- periences did you gain through this work and how does composing for foreign clients differ to work in the Balkans? “I’ve so far only composed a little music for foreign films and shows. They mostly heard my finished songs and took them for their projects. My music obviously contains some visual element, something that suits the im- age. The same principle applies to ad- vertisements.” Alongside touring, you’re al- so preparing a new album. What can we expect and when will it be promoted? “Creating a new album is quite a long process with me. I didn't plan it that way in my life, I believed I could
pliment I could have received is that many people who listen to that song don't even know who the author is. It sounds like it's a hundred years old because Dragan Bjelogrlić Bjela, direc- tor of the film Montevideo, asked me for a song with overtones from the 1920s and ‘30s. As if I have a time machine for imagination, I could easi- ly move to live in the Belgrade of that time. I even have the feeling that I’d be able to smell that spirit and atmos- phere, and see the characters who lived at that time. And the sounds from the West that the musicians of that time listened to and, in seeking them out, transferred to our mod- ern music. I also don’t know the au- thors of many songs that I like very much, except for, say, the Beatles. High-quality works are timeless and don’t only belong to their authors.” Do you even like taverns – that atmosphere in which songs receive some new life? “Yes, I really love them. I view taverns through the eyes of a sociol- ogist in some way, because I’ve spent many years not only enjoying them, but also feeling the tales penned in taverns that have been traversed by many destinies. It’s interesting to both write and read books about taverns. The specific kafana taverns of Serbia aren’t merely restaurants, as they are in the West. Here taverns are like institutions, as though they were invented by Serbia. There any- thing can happen. Irish pubs have a similarly strong character, but I ha- ven't been in them or in Ireland, so I'm just guessing.” Does a kind of magic hap- pen when you work for the projects of director Dra-
Pukni zoro je nezvanična himna srpske fudbalske reprezentacije i beskrajno sam srećan zbog toga, naročito jer u fudbalu navijam za Srbiju Pukni Zoro is the unofficial anthem of Serbia’s national football team, and that makes me infinitely happy – particularly because I support Serbia in football
60 | Intervju » Interiew
Interiew » Intervju | 61
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator