Gordan

The members of Gordan are Serbian singer Svetlana Spajić, Austrian percussionist Andi Stecher and German bassist and electronics specialist Guido Möbius. Spajić, a passionate collector of folk material which she uses to root her wilder experiments, has often focused on the darker side of societies, but this may be her darkest outing yet. Slack-skinned drums, clankings of shattered metal, bleak electronics and Spajić’s angry, almost resentful voice create a world in which ‘Šara’, a well-known folk song about three shepherds trapped on a mountain becomes a desperate prayer for salvation from a forest fire – yet only one will receive it. A remembered home village in ‘Selo Moje’ (a Spajić original) seems to be destroyed, with ashes trickling from blackened rafters and house walls pockmarked by shellfire. Several songs, with strings of brief two-line aphorisms often sung uproariously at parties or dances, deal with the folkloric figure of Baraba – described by Spajić as a vagabond – and outcasts born out of constant wars in the region. A song of lost love popularised by Južni Vetar almost provides a lyrical respite, but the self-indulgent regrets of the original are transmuted into despair. It’s serious, grim, and a work of art.