Opera, by Nenad Jelić i Laza Ristovski

Opera

by Nenad Jelić i Laza Ristovski

supported by

	/

Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Opera via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 7 days

Purchasable with gift card

£18.99 GBP or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£5.99 GBP or more

1.	Rhinoceros II 03:11	buy track
2.	Gajeiro 04:39	buy track
3.	Lamentation 03:08	buy track
4.	Sometimes At Nine 04:10	buy track
5.	Rumba Balcana 04:48	buy track
6.	Gitanes 05:30	buy track
7.	In The Sky 05:14	buy track

about

Soundway Records reissues a limited 1000 copy run of Nenad Jelić and Laza Ristovski's seminal experimental Serbian album Opera originally released on the former Yugoslavian state record label PGB / RTB in 1986. Combining Balkan and South American percussion and rhythms with synthesisers, vocal samples, and at times unexpected acoustic instruments (zither and harmonica), the album has slowly become a cult classic amongst fans of fourth world and avant garde music and is a kaleidoscope of contrasting moods and inspirations.

The recordings were the brainchild of Nenad Jelić: one of the most original artists to appear on the Serbian music scene in the late 1970s onwards. Jelić played in a wide variety of former-Yugoslavian contemporary jazz, modern classical and rock / pop outfits throughout the 80s until the present day, including the two, classic early 1980s LPs recorded by the Lala Kovačev Group: Balkan Impressions Volumes 1&2. A percussionist obsessed with melody and silence, and a multi-disciplinary instrumentalist, Jelić teamed up with the famous Serbian keyboard player Laza Ristovski in 1985 to help him arrange and realise his vision for the record. The year before its conception, Jelić had moved to Portugal and it's evident in the compositions that the musical waves that blow back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean had melded with the various Eastern European, Mediterranean and Balkan traditions that he had grown up with.

"This is where I completely immersed myself in the atmosphere of the Saudades, which helped me articulate my own personal vocation as an author, enabling me to focus on melancholy, melodiousness, the fluidity of the pulse". The Lisbon setting of the fado bars gave rise to the first impulses which would become Opera.

However, becoming "just another fado artist" wasn't enough. "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."

"I saw Portugal as an exceptionally emotional country with its trademark nascent sorrow, ever present in all those swaying voices and guitars," he explains. "I felt it very familiar with my own sentiment and it affected my style enormously." These are the exact same elements which he finds moving in any music, be it of Portuguese, Romanian, Greek, Turkish, Hungarian or Spanish origins. "If we try and seek the connection between all these worlds, we will inevitably stumble across the Romani people who left their mark pretty much everywhere." Jelić's approach is intuitive: "for me, music has always been a sort of a prayer, or a rite of sorts. It doesn't matter if it's the voices or the percussion instruments."

Re-mastered from the original tapes this newly reissued Soundway Records version on vinyl sounds far better than the original pressing which unfortunately had pressing flaws and surface noise throughout.

credits

released March 3, 2023

Mastering and Lacquer Cut: Frank Merritt, The Carvery
Artwork restoration: Javi Bayo

license

about

Soundway Records UK

"Simply put, England's Soundway label equals quality. " Pitchfork

Founded in 2002 by English DJ and Producer Miles Cleret, Soundway Records has released a number of critically acclaimed compilation albums and re-issues of African, Caribbean, Latin and Asian music from the 1950s-80s.

Since 2012, the label has also begun to issue original contemporary releases from around the world. ... more

contact / help

Contact Soundway Records

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Opera, you may also like:

The Gay Man's Guide To Safer Sex +2 (OST)
by Coil

supported by 5 fans who also own “Opera”

I'm not used to Coil sounding so accessible... this too pleases me The Boner
go to album
Orange
by CS + Kreme

supported by 5 fans who also own “Opera”

Would You Like A Vampire is such a sick track Dano Williams
go to album
LA OLA INTERIOR Spanish Ambient & Acid Exoticism 1983-1990
by Various Artists

supported by 5 fans who also own “Opera”

Sun, sea, sand & strangeness - beautiful ambient lush Mediterranean sounds Kiltyman
go to album
Helicopter
by duffin

featured on Bandcamp Radio Aug 9, 2022
go to album
Animist Pools
by Hippies Wearing Muzzles

Abstract, glyphic designs rise and are devoured by one another to analog synth tones that sound like skipping stones across a modular lake. Bandcamp New & Notable May 25, 2016
go to album
Pink Spirit, Noir World
by David Toop

A compilation of English musician David Toop's work, the music found herein is unpredictable, strange, often lovely, and free. Bandcamp New & Notable May 5, 2022
go to album
Mas Amable
by DJ Python

supported by 5 fans who also own “Opera”

A slow burn in the best of ways. Let it build, let it take you on a trip. jakeymumfie
go to album