Taken from album 'Dvojka'
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Video by Amer Kapetanovic www.amerkapetanovic.com
More on Damir Imamovic at www.damirimamovic.com
Sarajevo born and raised, Damir Imamović has been steeped in the sounds of sevdah since childhood. Much has been said of his stellar family tradition - both his father and grandfather remain legends of the form. Since those early days, however, when he would ward off boredom during the siege of the city in the early 1990s by learning guitar chords in his basement shelter, Imamović has completely changed the rules of the game.
For this is not a man content to insert himself seamlessly into any line of succession - that would be too easy. He comes with questions and challenges above all: questions for those gatekeepers of the genre bent on reducing style, rhythm and repertoire to a narrow set of conventions; and challenges to the more recent 20th century orthodoxies that would make of sevdah a straightforward reflection of national character. Imamović’s art is nothing less than a quiet, steady insurgency within sevdah - deeply considered work that refuses the seductions of nationalism. It takes the music beyond its birthplace and shows it the world.
The new album takes these musical and cultural orthodoxies and plays the hell out of them. The title, Dvojka, refers (perhaps slightly provocatively) to the 2/4 rhythm of modern sevdah’s ‘golden age’ of the 1950s and 60s, when many of the conventions of the genre were codified, and when what you couldn’t do had as much weight as what you could. There is enough affection for those conventions to make it a tribute, albeit a sceptical one, to those earlier Radio Sarajevo generations; but this wouldn’t be a Sevdah Takht album if it did not strike out on its own from the very outset.
Damir Imamović’s Sevdah Takht matches Glitterbeat’s cultural and musical enthusiasms perfectly. Theirs are global stories forged from a deep love for the regional tradition from which they come - a love strong enough to withstand the demands that this restless young artist places on it. As far as culture is always politics, and struggle in one is always struggle in both, this is a deeply political project; but it is also Imamović’s strongest personal statement to date. He was always going to make this album and we’re glad he’s made it with us.
SARAJEVO (lyrics)
At the foot of the mountain
Sarajevo nests, of stories a fountain
In it rests. Folk of yester times
Left their lasting marks
some a mark, some a devil’s furrow
But looking back, who can know
Who did well, who did not
And which wars were fought
Who a bitter tear shed
As flute and horn their tune led.
At the foot of the mountain,
Sarajevo nests, of stories a fountain
Of old songs a treasure pot
Of love that poems know not
Forever silent its children will remain
With sadness their lives underlain
They will be taught venom and hate
Dreaming about a distant, happy fate
At home, they will fear their shadow
But looking back, who can know.
Music and lyrics: D. Imamović
21 окт 2024
