Is it OK to write about your own music? That’s the dilemma I was struggling with during my first years of radio hosting and journalism. My show was the only one on the National Radio that covered the local alternative scene. And my band is a part of that scene. It wouldn’t be fair for the rest of the members and for the music itself if I ignored it as if it doesn’t exist, just because I am a part of those releases. So how do you review your own music?
What I would like to present here today is the latest album by “La Colonie Volvox” called “Blue Bird”, released in April 2015 in digital format on Bandcamp and as a CD in December the same year. I wouldn’t dare to tell you that it is one of the most exciting and creative albums of the year in Macedonia, because that would be bragging. Also, I can’t tell you that it is the band’s strongest effort so far, because that would be bragging too. So why don’t you just let me tell you the story behind Blue Bird, restricting myself from giving compliments and… well, you know - bragging.
It all started after the disbanding of the progressive rock group “Klerzo”, a project that lasted for over a decade in various line-ups. One sunny day, the singer Sasho Gigov - Gish and me were taking a walk in the center of Skopje and found something incredible on the local flea market - a harmonium, a dhol and couple of karatals (for those that don’t know, all of these are Indian traditional instruments) and some Indian clothes. They were left by some musicians from India who didn’t pay the hotel bill and left without their baggage. Well, good for us ‘cause we immediately bought them, brought them home and started jamming. After few days a guitar player joined, then a trombonist, a saxophone player and when the drummer came we suddenly started to look like a band. We were jamming at least four times a week with various musicians (some with really strange instruments) that joined us with no particular aim or intention. We were just jamming. Disappointed by the problems with the previous band, we decided that this was not going to be a band. It was going to be a free micro-society, a living organism or if you prefer - a colony. Hence the name “La Colonie Volvox”, which in French means “Volvox Colony”. Why in French? I really can’t remember… However, these jams produced an aleatoric jazz album with only two compositions (one being over 45 minutes long) which we offered to the Skopje Jazz Festival Records, one of the most prestige record labels in the country. They accepted the offer to release the album under one condition - we were to re-record a material of traditional a capella songs, a project that we recorded previously for the needs of the Macedonian National Radio and they knew about it. We said OK ‘cause we really wanted our instrumental music to be out there and our first two albums called “Abstractology” and “Wasteland” came out as twins in 2006 under the SJF Records label. It was a strange combination - the twins didn’t look alike at all. Still, there was a metaphysical dimension that somehow connected the two materials and we liked it, but in our minds we were still a free-jazz-aleatoric collective. The follow ups “Europa” (2009) and “East West and Rest” (2010) continued in that direction and we were happy about it.
But then something happened that the ring did not intend to happen...OK, it wasn’t that dramatic. We were invited to play in Venice on the opening of an art exhibition by several Macedonian artists on the Venice Biennale. But Venice is a town with no cars or buses. How were we to walk 3 miles to get to the place with all the guitars, amplifiers, keyboards and a drum set? By gondola? It would have costed us a fortune. So we decided to go unplugged. We picked up an acoustic guitar, oud and a tambura (traditional string instrument) and re-arranged couple of troubadour and ethnic songs we knew already and went to Venice (we had a wonderful time, by the way). But we continued jamming with these instruments and we liked it a lot. It resulted in the fifth studio album called “AEIOU”, a mixture of troubadour and traditional music from Europe and the Middle East, which was a significant step away from the previous albums. We toured in promotion of the material, it all went well, the audience loved it and everything was fine until we got bored.
And that’s when the story of “Blue Bird” begins. After 15 years of experiments and exploration of the wondrous realms of music and sound, we felt the need to write songs and lyrics again. The material was written, recorded and mixed in five months of hard and intense work, resulting with an album consisting of eight originals and two covers. “Blue Bird” is a straight-ahead song oriented album, with music that reflects and resembles our musical heroes – The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Doors and Frank Zappa, but also Nick Cave and Tom Waits, as well as the old blues masters. From the cabaret-like atmosphere of the opening love songs, the album slowly shifts towards hard driven blues and British rock, as humor and political themes replace love motifs...
...and this is where I stop. As I said at the beginning I won’t be bragging. Actually that’s how I solved my dilemma - I never review the music I participate in, I just present it. That said I’ll leave the reviewing to you, hoping you liked this story and that you’ll enjoy the album as much as I do.
Full album (free listen and download):
https://la-colonie-volvox.bandcamp.com/album/blue-b
