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Artist
Gordan
12+ albums
emoindie rockindiefolkexperimental
about
Svetlana Spajić has spent the last twenty-five years visiting villages in the Balkans, absorbing the words passed down from generation to generation, as well as the decasyllabic cadences of traditional folk tunes. Hers is a voice of such unique power that spiritual uplift and deep pathos simultaneously imbue the listener when she’s in full flight. Alongside her in Gordan are drummer Andi Stecher and noise-maker Guido Möbius, a pan-European experimental trio who hail from Serbia, Austria and Germany, respectively. Gordan brings together resonant acoustic drums, unpredictable feedback and Spajić’s remarkable voice on tracks like ‘Barabinska’ from the band’s self-titled second album. Stecher’s drums and percussion – although deliberately off-kilter in a free jazz kind of a way on ‘Selo Moje’ – otherwise mediates between Guido Möbius’s irregular noise interjections and Spajić’s astonishing set pieces. Taking folk songs passed down by oral tradition and mixing them up with electronic music is not without precedent. In 2003, Scottish Celtic fusionist Martyn Bennett was sampling – and in some cases meeting and recording with – Scottish travellers and Gaelic west coast singers for his landmark album Grit. More recently, we have artists such as cello and violin duo Fran & Flora from London bringing well-researched Eastern European klezmer tradition into new Fourth World dimensions with an array of pedals strewn across the stage floor. Stretching the definition somewhat, you could eve
