Amulette

Tim Cumming tells the story of Amira recording ‘Bele Ruže’, the Saban Bajramović song that opens this album in his feature on p46. With just voice and double bass, it sets up the stripped-back and spontaneous quality that characterises this record. Amira Medunjanin is Bosnia's finest sevdah singer and she enjoys taking this traditional Bosnian song form in new directions. She's recorded sevdah with a full band – Mostar Sevdah Reunion – with a contemporary accordionist, Merima Kljućo, and here with a Bosnian jazz pianist, Bojan Zulfikarpasic. I wasn't sure I was going to like this, fearing schmaltzy sevdah lounge. But Zulfikarpasic, who helpfully calls himself by the stage name Bojan Z, has come up with arrangements and playing that suit the music perfectly: sometimes restrained (‘Zemi Me Zemi’), sometimes avant-garde (‘Grana Od Bora’), sometimes incisive (‘Oj Ti Mome’). Only in ‘Jano Mori’ do the piano arpeggios seem to become a little excessive.

The ten songs here are mostly Bosnian and Macedonian – ‘Prošeta se Jovka Kumanovka’ is in a catchy Macedonian rhythm – although there are songs from Serbia and Kosovo as well, but they are unified by a sevdah sensibility. Amira's focused but vulnerable voice carries the emotion of the music without indulgence or exaggeration. It's a delight.