Subcultures vs. sculptures: a quick glimpse into Skopje’s local music scene

Published March, 2025
by Viktor Tanaskovski

Amidst the folding maps of history, there are certain cities that, when mentioned, we may find ourselves thinking of endless processes of destruction and renewal. Such is the case with Skopje, the capital of Macedonia. And no, I am not talking only about the fake neo-classicism facades and monuments that had become the dominant landscape of the city in the past decade. I am also talking about plagues, floods, earthquakes, and the solidarity that rebuilt the city after each of these catastrophes. I believe that any art scene that has emerged from such circumstances, must inevitably be built on the same principles – constant rebirth based on free will and mutualism. Coming from, and being a part of Skopje’s music scene for the past 15 years, I will try and give a quick glimpse into its history and the emergence of its present day streams.

Just as Skopje was re-built after the earthquake of 1963, so was its music scene after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 90s. If we take a look at the situation from a historical point of view, Macedonia is probably one of the ex-Yugoslav countries with the least continuity in any given field. Thus, when we talk about the music scene here, the first thing that needs to be clarified is that there have been at least two separate “scenes” – one before, and the other one after 1991, with a slight overlap. The main difference between the two is that the one before belonged to a much bigger marketplace. Macedonian bands who were active in Yugoslavia often sung in Serbo-Croatian, the “unofficially official” language of Yugoslavia, as a way to reach a broader audience all over the country. They were also recording their albums in other cities such as Zagreb and Ljubljana, and they were selling those records in all of the republics of the federation. After ‘91 however, the previously united marketplace split into a number of smaller ones existing on their own, and for a tiny country such as Macedonia, becoming an independent state went hand in hand with limitations, especially keeping in mind that the Macedonian language differs quite a bit from the other languages spoken in Yugoslavia. This left the art scene here with, almost exclusively, a Macedonian audience. Given this fact, the bands that emerged in the 90s started writing lyrics mainly in Macedonian, which, even though meant that some doors became harder to open due to the language barrier, it was nevertheless the first time in history that Macedonia had started developing a unique alternative music scene. The style of music shifted from the previously more classic-rock oriented, with many jazz fusion, prog, and native folklore influences such as the case of Leb I Sol and Den za den, to a lot more dark wave, industrial, heavier, punkish, and also, more electronic driven. 

Iva Damjanovski – Sinestetika 2022

Bands that emerged in the late 80s, such as Mizar, Padot na Vizantija, Arhangel, and Anastasia started incorporating more Orthodox Christian themes, maybe even as a response to it not being so favorable in the Socialist federation, and they also started mixing genres such as post punk and dark wave with Byzantine chants, a mixture previously unheard of, yet so seamless and almost natural-sounding. Similarly, some very intelligent folklore-fused electro-acoustic ambient experiments such as Lola V. Stain were formed at around the same time. Those were all late Yugoslav/early Macedonian alternative music projects that have somewhat become the go-to example of how our music had sounded, and some of them, although with many line-up changes over the years, are still active today.

The scene that emerged later in the 90s was much less stylistically uniformed, but rather divided into a few somewhat disjointed directions: electronic music, alternative rock, hardcore/punk, metal, hip hop, etc. What is happening today is that the new scene is much more intertwined, with artists from various underground genres being a part of the same collective, performing in the same venues, doing cross-genre split gigs etc. Now, whether this is for the better is quite debatable, but I strongly believe that everything is better than a fistfight between metalheads and skinheads.

Acts from these above-mentioned “micro scenes” have managed to make their names in the 90s and early 2000s and have started various movements in their own genres: bands like the PMG collective in the electronic music scene, FPO in the punk and hardcore scene, SAF in the rap scene, to name but a few, have become genre-defining in their own regard, and they wrote mostly in Macedonian. However, what happened a little later, especially with the arrival of the internet, was that when newer bands started publishing their releases on early platforms such as MySpace, and later BandCamp, YouTube, etc., in an attempt to reach wider audiences, most of them began writing mainly in English. This was a major divergence from previous practice, and it sort of led to, instead of gaining, maybe even losing audiences locally. In my opinion, this mainly had to do with the authenticity that was lost, or at least compromised, but it is also an interesting linguistic and cultural phenomenon: a “lost in translation” type of communication gap.

A bit later, not being able to find their audience with original material, many musicians became discouraged and sort of gave up the fight. This was the birth of the tribute and cover band culture that was, up until recently, the main thing you would see at a gig in Skopje and the rest of Macedonia. Now, I am not saying that there were no bands working only on original material, but it was much harder to talk about a coherent scene, especially due to the fact that even the micro-movements that existed in the early 2000s were very strictly divided: punk was only for the punk rockers, metal was only for the metalheads, etc., highlighted by the occasional aforementioned fistfights between members of different subcultures when two “opposing” acts were playing at a festival on the same night. Luckily, the newer generations nowadays are way too open-minded and pacifistic to fall into such traps. As for the previously mentioned cover culture, alt kids today couldn’t care less about those dad-rock cheap thrills. With all of this at hand, I think it is safe to say that newer generations seem to have ditched the punk vs. metal antagonism, as well as the (unrelated) cover band culture altogether, so that even when you do hear young people from the alternative scene play a cover gig, it is in the form of a Throbbing Gristle, rather than a Guns and Roses tribute.

Sara Bogoeva – Ata live @ Sepak se vrti 2024

The eclecticism of genres and ideas that have started taking place in recent years, coupled with the improvedbettered technical fluency and technological literacy, especially after COVID (people stayed at home, read, practiced their instruments more, and listened to more music), have led to a complete renewal (once again) of the scene as a whole. Given these circumstances, this “brand-new-new-wave” that is happening in Skopje (and Macedonia in general), has to offer something very fresh and very substantial.

Another important factor contributing to the development of this new scene is that pretty much all of the people inside the different streams know each other personally and hang out together. Out of this came many collaborations and many festivals, most of them DIY, and even often, DIY by choice (I will elaborate on this a bit later). This could even be considered a good thing, since it supports a mutualism driving the scene.

One more of the many fresh things that are happening lately is that a free improvisation scene has also emerged, coming from amateur musicians experimenting with sound, but also from musicians who are are quite well educated, with academic degrees in jazz or classical music, and who are rather taking this same DIY approach and choose to be a part of the more wild and “street” scene of free improv in small venues.

Speaking of which, we will now move to a slightly more “unpleasant” subject. Probably the biggest problem that we deal with are venues, or rather, the scarcity of them, but also, the corruption and nepotism in the ones that do exist (a subject which I will not delve deeper into, to keep a lighter tone, at least in this occasion), and the practice of trying to establish only one option. And I don’t think having one venue is enough for a city which tends to be a center of cultural happenings. At least two are needed (preferably more) with the amount of art being created and demanding space as well as active and driven artists. Turning towards monopolism could stunt growth in such a place as Skopje, since quality could drop due to the lack of a challenger.  Anyhow, what I am trying to say is that Skopje is a city full of empty buildings and old factories and warehouses that are abandoned, but instead of being inhabited by cultural workers, they are waiting for the next useless investor to turn them into the next redundant modern skyscraper with more and more uninhabited water-leaking apartments.

Another thing that musicians here are struggling with, is having cultural centers that are not suitable for performance, that either don’t have a PA system, don’t have a stage, don’t have monitors, technical staff, etc. As a lament, what has been crucial in shaping cultural life is the horrifying abundance of educated musicians and artists in general, who are working odd-jobs rather than in the cultural sector. Young cultural professionals are so often denied access to being decision-makers in both the private, as well as the public cultural sector despite their expertise, and are either forced to wait for the oldies to finally give up the chair, or, not willing to participate in the corrupted way of functioning, voluntarily withdraw, frustrated by the experience.

Zdenko Petrovski – first hear the sound in your head (Joana Risteska live)

To come back to it, I don’t think Skopje has a problem with the number of cultural events, sometimes there are even more than enough. What I do see as a problem however, is in how and why some events are organized, for what motives and in what way, with what skills and with what means, especially when we talk about institutional-support. Here’s a nice tautological expression – the cultural sector started taking grants for granted. Even though I expect many of my colleagues to disagree (but many to agree as well), I believe that one of the main problems nowadays lies in the “funding culture” that has plagued even the so-called “independent” scene. Independent scene depending on grants. Independent scene that may become a mere platitude.

It is no wonder that what we get out of this are events no one or very few ever care about, made just because someone already got some dough that needs to be spent and justified. And rather than depending on ticket sales and thus selling them, some organizers who work in this manner do not even bother to draw an audience. They already paid the honorarium to everyone involved, themselves included. Luckily, out of this struggle comes the need to act ourselves. Based on the principle of mutual aid that I mentioned before, emerged festivals such as Pod zemja polesno se dishe (It Is Easier To Breathe Underground), Sinestetika (nod to self), also the slightly newer Skopje Space Jam (an annual music festival in the Planetarium) and Sepak se vrti organized by the young collective Gola Planina (Naked Mountain), etc. (all of which, and the artists they represent, require an article of their own). As a statement, most of these events are organized outdoors instead of at a venue, a claim of space both metaphorical as well as literal. 

In addition to this, there are also quite a few new labels that have started operating, such as Aksioma, Skopska Sekta, Mrtov Konj, etc. Also, in order to organize themselves more easily, people from the scene have started forming various indie collectives such as the aforementioned Gola Planina, with a number of people doing highly skilled music production work, also in graphic design, printing, event planning, tour management, etc. without actually being a business. People are recording more and more, and releasing more and more, also in contrast to their older colleagues who did this without a care for sound quality and technical proficiency in the early 2000s. People nowadays do this at a pro-level, all by themselves, very often with no more than a two-channel home studio interface. Of course, it is easier now that this equipment exists, but the urge to be professional is what is most important, whether independently, or via a label. So, again, not DIY due to the lack of funds or for the sake of being an outcast, but DIY because it has (maybe even regretfully) become the better way to achieve high quality nowadays.
Now, when we talk about an “independent” or an “underground” scene, we should also probably define which scene is “dependent” and “mainstream”. And that leads us to a different problem.

The problem of not having an opponent so as to have a proper rebellious answer. Our alternative has nothing to be alternative to. No real mainstream. No pop stars in the real meaning of the word. Pop stars in Macedonia have reduced themselves to playing one or two concerts a year, and some of them even make a living by playing cover gigs, adding some of their “own” songs every now and then, playing abroad just when scoring a gig at the local diasporic Macedonian cultural center. But it feels like the alt scene is slightly more “popular” than the pop scene itself, at least among the new generation, which was not the case in the 90s and early 2000s, especially when TV, radio and CDs were the main sources of a music listening experience. The few that are still active and relevant at all have made a name for themselves back then. Nothing new emerges, no industry to inspire a revolution. It even goes to show, with a sense of irony, that whatever happens in the mainstream can do little without musicians who were previously a part of the alternative scene, some of them, again, highly educated and quite proficient instrumentalists, now occasionally earning a paycheck as back-up members of washed-up pop singers. We certainly need a worthy adversary.

Anyway, since I mentioned media coverage, I have to say there is barely any for the so-called alternative scene. We still have radio Kanal 103 which played an important role in the local scene of Skopje ever since 1991, but unfortunately it recently lost its national frequency, and ironically, even though it can be listened on the internet from anywhere in the world, it lost its reach (in my opinion in the same way local bands had lesser impact when singing exclusively in English, even though most of the people here speak the language fluently). Also, some new internet radios are popping up from time to time, but they have a very short life span, and very poor financial plannings(pun intended). And yes, we all know that the radio format is slowly shifting to audio podcasts, but, in this context as well, we still don’t have many specialized music podcasts here. One of the few that we do have at the moment goes quite in-depth and drops new episodes on a regular weekly basis, but it is focused exclusively on the jazz scene – Dzezot denes (Jazz Today). Probably the only music podcast that gives voice to all of the genres of the underground scene is demobilizacija which is a non-commercial, labor-of-love project we started a few years ago.

However, to finish on a more positive note, I believe that what is happening nowadays in the local scene of Skopje is something quite interesting, fresh, and exciting. Also, with all due respect to the older generations, I believe the scene in Macedonia at the moment is the one that is the most diverse, the most technically proficient and, more importantly, as a whole, the most artistically substantial by far.

This movement of doing instead of waiting for access in the current Macedonian scene, albeit its evident struggle and constant problem hurdling, in my view, is an inspiring story of a building of foundations. Despite a constant lack of continuity, something is being built and what is happening will leave a trace. It is a beginning. (Young) people today have much greater access to knowledge, and smart people are always knowledge-hungry: they use this access, they learn, and they advance. And in praise of this process, instead of a conclusion, a quote by the English musician and music theorist Chris Cutler describing the methods of his band Henry Cow in the ‘70s is fitting – “We had a great faith in the power of music to clarify, to educate, to criticize. We believed that it should aestheticize perception. On the subject of pleasure, we concurred with Socrates, that what gives most pleasure is to learn.”

Text: Viktor Tanaskovski

This article is brought to you as part of the EM GUIDE project – an initiative dedicated to empowering independent music magazines and strengthen the underground music scene in Europe. Read more about the project at emgui.de.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.