2011 in Macedonian music by Toni Dimitrov
Published January, 2012
by Easterndaze
Toni Dimitrov is a mainstay in the Macedonian independent scene. He’s been a part of the brilliant Kanal 103 radio station (which we gatecrashed in autumn, more on that soon) for astonishing 14 years. He’s also a creator himself (tweaking field recordings collected during his many expeditions into Macedonia’s nature), and a curator (through his new label Post Global).
What’s the highlight for you in Macedonia’s music scene?
Last year was a key one in many ways, as well as music wise. There were many projects, events and artists worth mentioning and many that I was involved with:
– 20 years of existence of Kanal103, the radio that I have worked at for already 14 years. It is the most important music/culture media in Macedonia, responsible for the shape and existence of the contemporary music scene as we know it today, in charge of promoting most of the good artists that are still working on the scene today. It is behind most of the good events in Skopje and beyond. We celebrated this anniversary with a few events and festivals presenting the cream of the Macedonian music scene. Listen to us!
– I celebrated 10 years of existence of my radio show Post Global with a couple of events presenting local and international artists, culminating with the festival VICE VERSE which consisted of workshops, exhibitions, video screenings and live performances/dj sets by American, Serbian and local audio/video/visual artists. Plus the 1 year of existence of Music and Politics, another radio program that I’m involved in.
– Have to mention the label Greenfields that released 10 releases last year with international and local artists and diverse sounds. Last spring we did a tour through Macedonia presenting the artists and their work.
– Music and Politics started collaborating with the regional webzine BTurn.com and launched a series of events presenting regional and local artists. At the first party, Belgarade DJ lady Tijana T was promoted with her dj set as well as a local project Jerton. Second party in on the way with Jan Nemecek and Dimitar Dodovski, one of the best upcoming regional artists.
What is the low point for you in Macedonia’s music scene?
– Lowpoints are things that we have to deal with locally so I’m not sure if I want to talk about this and ‘promote’ them internationally. But if you insist the first thing I have to mention is the lack of communication and collaboration between the artists on the scene. Because in my opinion, the definition of the term scene is: SCENE = COMMUNICATION and COLLABORATION. Which does not exist here in the sense of consisting and building.
– Another low point is the lack of clubs. There are no clubs, that means there are no events, that means there is no audience, that means there is no scene! The scene is a live organism, each thing pulls another.
– The mass existence of cover bands is the result of the other already mentioned points. These bands have been playing the same 15 songs in each of the five clubs in the city for years already, but recently they became the only thing that is going on in the club scene. Same people have been going to the same places each day, listening to the same 15 songs every day for years already, and they are fine with it! That’s really sick and that’s not what we want our scene to look like. Of course, here I don’t want to mention the flood of Serbian rock/pop/turbofolk artists playing massive concerts in Skopje.
– The indolence of the audience. If you don’t have clubs and events, the audience is becoming indolent and they are rarely going to events, if at all. Usually they go to mainstream events with big commercial djs and pop concerts or where young people are at – cover bands gigs. Unfortunately that happened here, slowly killing the real artistic scene.
Discovery-new artist of the year /in Macedonia/?
– I will have to highlight Dimitar Dodovski, an artist that has released a couple of tracks and remixes on well known net labels in the dub techno scene like Tropic, Inuoki, Yuki Yaki, Greenfields and even Neo Ouiija, with a release planned for the Japanese label Lantern (Martin Shulte, Arctic Hospital, Taylor Deupree). His sound is deep and beat oriented with variations in minimal dub, dubtech, techno and house. Last year he had great live performance with a drummer. Really mighty experimental dubby but still dancey show.
Dimitar Dodovski & Sasko Kostov Live @ Zdravo Mladi Festival (extract) by Dimitar Dodovski
– Herzel is one of the local artists signed on Greenfields worth mentioning. He also releases on another hard working label Filter. He has released a couple of releases on Greenfields and Filter getting worldwide attention with his experimental post dubstep sound. His upcoming vinyl release will be out soon on Other Heights.
Supernova Remnant EP (free download) [Greenfields Label] by herzel
– Disphilharmonia. The most exciting experimental live audio/video project. A laptop quartet with 3 boys and a girl. They also have really successful solo projects.
Autemu is the girl in the project. She already had a few releases on international labels.
cl-039 | Autemu – This EP by Crazy Language
Baltronic is another solo project from the disphilharmonians with a release on the aforementioned label Greenfields.
– Delta M45. Two guys are behind this project: Dragoljub Curcic from Serbia (Subotica) and Goce Gligurovski from Macedonia (Bitola) making what is the true meaning of what we call kosmische musik. The perfect album for travelling, no matter if it is in the woods or in outer space. You can listen to it while sleeping and dreaming. Was created last summer during a live session. Coming up in early 2012 on my new label Post Global recordings!
Personal tips and wishes and plans for 2012?
The album of Delta M45 is definitely one of the tips and wishes as well as exact plans. I’m launching my new label Post Global recordings with their album Space Probe as a first release. Can’t wait! Followed by a collaboration release between my project sound_00 and Norwegian artist Iversen. Also got a great new electroacoustic/drone material for this collaboration. We collaborated here for the second time after the first self titled 7" released on Dirty Demos in UK.
After five years of hiatus, we have got together again on our new material, which consisted of drone/ambient pieces. The base of the material are field recordings made in untouched nature in the Macedonian mountains and villages during my trips/climbing, which were edited subsequently in a collaboration process between two artists coming from two different parts of the world. Part of this material will be released on Dirty Demos on a tape format and another part on the label I usually collaborate with Panospria in Canada. After that I’m planning releases from Sebastian Zangar and a re-release of Normal Music, which originally appeared on my first label Acid Fake.