The Republic of Macedonia is a little country in the middle of the Balkans which has become independent during the break-up of Yugoslavia in the early 90s. And there is an underground music scene.

The Yugoslavian underground was very strong and rampant in the last decade of the South Slav confederacy with many great and strange artists like the Slovenian Laibach, Borghesia, the Serbian Disciplina Kicme, the Montenegrin Rambo Amadeus, the Croatian Satan Panonski, the Hungarian Bada Dada, and lots of others. But I heard about Macedonian underground artists nothing. Until recently when the various artists album „Magare i muzika” (Donkey and Music) has been released on BALKAN VELIKI RECORDS.

It’s a surprisingly good and colourful album about the Macedonian underground from indie pop new wave via psych-folk punk to electronic beats. And exception of Dj Zdena – who played at RNR666 Party in Budapest – and Bernays Propaganda – who makes tours in Europe often – there are totally unknown artists for me. But there are not just Macedonian artists like the Croatian Lutajuci Dj Zdena or the English Membranes because they were also released by BALKAN VELIKI. And at the moment  I have realized that hc-punk jazz fusion band Mnjenje is Serbian. So this album represents a wider region, what means the ex-Yugoslvaian underground is strong and rampant. But unfortunately there are two horrible hard rock songs in the middle of the album:

Anyway, I was curious about the Macedonian people, and it has turned out they are descendants of orthodox Slavs who did not run away and did not become Greeks, Bulgarians or Serbs during the last 150 years. After waves of different national proselytization some of them realized that anyway they are Macedonians. At first officially the separate Macedonian ethnicity was recognised by Communist International in 1934 because Soviet Russia wanted to use the network of Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization to revolutionize the Balkans. Funny, that year the organization was banned and dissolved in Bulgaria where it was state within the state. But after this they could manage to kill the Yugoslavian king and – if he already was there – the French Foreign Minister in Marseille same year within the framework of Croatian – Italian – Hungarian cooperation.

Albano-Macedonian prog folk rock band Blla Blla Blla…

Pic above: Mnjenje