Serbia:

Discom is a label run by husband and wife team, Vanja and Luka, in Belgrade. They are discovering and releasing the music of former Yugoslavia. Vanja spoke to World Treasures Music.

WTM – The Yugoslavian Space Program compilation has been well received, did you expect this?

“Yes, it has been received well and we expected that, since we made the compilation based on unreleased songs of the artists who are pretty familiar to collectors and Djs worldwide. Through the research or investigations of cosmic genre from former Yugoslavia, we gave to these songs one complete form which is surely interesting. To keep it short – we have relatively famous artists with unknown songs in an interesting concept and that is a form which makes success.

“At the moment, we are releasing a completely unknown album of an unknown group so naturally our expectations are low, although we think that music has great value and quality. Because of that, success is not primary, but the promotion of unknown and yet quality music from ex Yugoslavia.”

WTM – How do you collect/compile the music?

“We live in Belgrade our whole life so we are able to make contacts with artists or their families in case of artist not being alive. In the beginning these contacts are mainly cold because labels and publishers have bad reputation here in Serbia, but with time that relation becomes lighter, we gain their trust when they realise what we do in order to promote their music and what kind of results we make. And after realising that we become friends.

“When we make a compilation we put efforts to treat each side of the record as one complete story so listener can feel the integrity of the material we release. For instance, in our first release Max Vincent – The Future Has Designed Us LP, we made lifework compilation in chronological order so listener might understand how maturity of artist’s expression and production grows from song to song.

In Sizike – U Zemlji Cuda With Lost Data Tracks LP we made classical split compilation form: one side is reissue of original album and other side includes previously unreleased songs made by the same crew. All songs are sorted by classical formula fast-medium-fast-slow-fast-medium song, for example.

“It was very hard to make compilation of Yugoslavian Space Program LP since we aimed to make archival release where songs are sorted chronologically, and to respect their production as well as tempo. That is why we decided to put two songs of every author one next to another in order to achieve consistency (in such a constellation side A sounds more analogue and side B more digital).”

WTM – Do you DJ or produce?

“We don’t work as Djs in clubs, but sometimes we are making Yugo mixes for promotional purposes.”

Available on Discom: Yugoslavian Space Program, Max Vincent’s The Future Has Designed Us and Šizike’s U Zemlji Čuda With Lost Data Tracks (right).

For more information on Discom and to listen to one of their mixes, click on the link below to visit the excellent Robin The Fog blog:

Space, Hook And Splice – Yugoslavian Electronics, Swedish Saxophones And Loops From The Last Party

 

Greece

Woah!! This is Greek proto-techno from 1985. Pianist and composer, Lena Plantonos, was born in October 1951, in Heraklion, Crete. This is an underground classic of European new wave/cold wave and  continues to influence electronica today.

And here’s mega-star Vangelis. The behemoth of 70s and 80s ambient music, soundtrack composer for blockbusting films such as Chariots Of Fire and Bladerunner and classically trained electronic wizard shows his surreal artistry here.

 

Italy

This is an operatic piece by Roberto De Simone and Nuova Compagnia and is a pretty pricey item nowadays. Thanks to its chugging rhythm, tribalistic drum patterns and wild chanting, it has found favour with DJs from the Chicago scene, such as Rahaan, through to electro/sleaze jock Ivan Smagghe, who admitted it’s getting pretty weird if he’s dropping this. Enjoy!