Nenad Jelić / Laza Ristovski
Opera LP

Experimental Yugo-prog/fourth world/new age from Serbia’s answer to Jon Hassell - the duo of Nenad Jelic & Laza Ristovski - who paved the way for Mitar Subotić/Suba/Rex Ilusivii on a 1985 classic recommended if yr into Hiroshi Yoshimura, The Art of Noise, ECM, Gigi Masin, Laurie Anderson or the sprawling Stroom thing.

‘Opera’ is the sole LP by Jelic & Ristovski, recorded for former Yugoslavian state record label PGB/RTB. Original copies are now mad expensive and in demand for the album’s hybrids of Balkan tradition with a strong influence from Portuguese saudade, with added currents of South American music and contemporary strains of ambient jazz and pop. A big attraction here is the use of early computer and synth technology which permeates their acoustic instrumentation and electro-acoustic timbres in brightly melodic and effusive productions clearly forged in the image of Jon Hassell, but distinguished by a Balkan heritage, resulting in a sound that echoes Offen Music’s unarchived works of Mitar Subotić and the modal moods of László Hortogbagyi, with bags of added slap bass and orchestral stabs that wink to ‘80s Hollywood scores. 

Jelic & Ristovski take obvious inspiration from the melancholy soul of Portuguese fado and Jon Hassell’s hyper prismatic 4th world style on ‘Opera’, given a notable era-specific vibe courtesy of early computers and synths that also place this album in the near stylistic vicinity of Laurie Anderson’s ‘Home of The Brave’ and the pitched vocal daftness of The Art of Noise’s ‘In Visible Silence’ from the same era. Jelic comments "My temperament, my previous experience, my sensibility, they all clearly pointed toward a fusion of ambient, jazz and pop music laced with elements of the various Balkan musical traditions as well as the universe of the Latin American sound."

Also drawing from the inflections of Romani music that are found across Balkan and Mediterranean musics, ’Opera’ is a melodramatic experience full of sentimental melody and vocals, flowing through sections of plastic joy, careening from the carnival percussion of ‘Rhinoceros II’ to the big band emulation of ‘In The Sky’ via pluckiest slap bass on ‘Gawker’ and the Suba-esque choral work ‘Lamentation’. Curious diggers fascinated by the liminal space between Les Disques du Crépuscule, Stroom, and Editions EG - look no further, this one's for you.

NEW / Released in 1986 / 2023

Tracklist:

A1 Rhinoceros II

A2 Gajeiro

A3 Lamentation

A4 Sometimes At Nine

B1 Rumba Balcana

B2 Gitanes

B3 In The Sky