Track Tales: PJEV, Kit Downes & Hayden Chisholm - Medna roso (Red Hook Records 2023.)

Sometimes things in life just fall into place perfectly. This is also true for the collaboration of the Zagreb female vocal quintet PJEV, the English organist Kit Downes and the New Zealand saxophonist Hayden Chisholm. In 2021, as part of the Cologne Jazz Week, they held a joint concert in the Church of St. Agnes, which is now released as an album on Red Hook Records. "Medna roso" combines traditional singing from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina with ambient, jazz and some drone music. This album once again shows all the beauty of combining traditional music with other genres, and for Izvorišta the girls from PJEV talk about the vocal songs from the album...

Listaj goro ne žali be’ara (Bloom you mountain, dont regret the blooming flowers)

(serbian “na bas” song from Ribaševina near Užice (Serbia) learned by the studio recording of a group ”Ribaševke”)

Jovana Lukić: Ribaševke all female group are the legends of traditional singing in Serbia, a real masters. Their strong, flexible and aligned voices that move with ease are an ideal quality of this style. Each and every one of their songs is beautiful in its own way and they have been present in my life from the first day I started learning traditional songs. Listaj goro ne žali be’ara was always my favorite one, so rich and flamboyant in its expression. This is a song that doesn't open itself at first, but after a while it starts to bloom like the lyrics are telling us. The whole song is sprouting and it has this feeling of an early spring freshness and life energy coming from everywhere. The characteristic refrains with the sounding of the words being more important than their meaning and being musically very playful and full of joy are an interesting contrast to the verse atmosphere but also a big addition to this spring party. Dark clouds are there also in the last verse - a cognition that life doesn't have another spring like nature has. This presence of “both sides” gives a unique melancholy feeling with an accent on the stronger sunny side of life.

Ova brda i puste doline (These hills and desolate valleys)

(serbian “na glas” (old) i “na bas” (newer) combined song, from Stragari (Serbia), learned by an archive recording)

Gloria Lindeman: While singing this song I always imagine a woman sitting in front of her house and very relaxedly cursing the mountains that are keeping her apart from her beloved. Relaxedly- because she KNOWS she will eventually get him. Her problems are not like ours- deadlines, bills, loans, identity crisis...This Titan woman will simply sweep away the mountains to get what she wants and that's it. Life is simple.

Što si setna, nevesela (Why are you sad and cheerless)

(a serbian solo song learned by the archive recording of Slavica Redžić from Štrpce (South Kosovo))

Zvezdana Anastasija Ostojić: Very often, after performing abroad, I had the opportunity to meet listeners, members of other cultures, and to talk with them about how they feel about our tradition. It is precisely the experience of listeners outside our Serbian-Croatian / Croatian-Serbian speaking area that has always been interesting to me. If you asked them what they would single out as the dominant emotion in the melody of the songs they heard, it would most often be sadness. This is exactly one of those songs that seem to carry the centuries-old sadness of a nation, translated into a magnificent image. It is a picture of a sad, cheerless girl with an expression like the sky before a storm, with a face not white, shiny and clean like a wedding linen but like a linen crumpled, yellowed and left in an uncut, overgrown meadow - her tangled and uncombed hair...

Oj, djevojko, janje umiljato (Oh, girl, you sweet lamb)

(serbian “ojkača” song from Gornja Jutrogošta, Potkozarje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, learned by the “Čarojice” band studio recording)

Jovana Lukić: Another brilliant example of traditional singing, this time old style called “ojkača” and all male band Čarojice performance, has definitely a unique colored sound which is a result of a low manish intonation and unique natural tempered tones (frequencies) both in the melody and in harmony. The song is heavy, oily, almost tarry, but dances very lightly between the syllables and has a feeling of something heavy and strong and really tight, but again so romantic and naive. I feel this song is like some big creature from the woods looking for some love and attention. The words of the song are also underlining this feeling where a guy is almost confessing to us how he feels - “nobody knows how my heart feels” which is not at all usual for a man to do in the everyday life of harsh (village) life. Behind the big manly dark color of the song sits a normal human heart in a need for love.

Medna roso, gdje si zimovala (Honeydew where did you spend the winter)

(croatian “na bas” song from Kutinsko selo near Kutina (Croatia) learned by the archive recording)

Lana Hosni: As far as I can recall, the first time I heard this song I didn't find it all that interesting- simple harmonies, predictable flow, very basic melody.. Yet when I started singing it, it always got me by the last two verses, how it turns into singing about the passage of time, temporality of youth and certainty of life eventually ending. (Also, a need for love which may never be really fulfilled, but hey that’s my free interpretation:) ) It’s one of those songs that hit me even harder because of the lightness and simplicity in delivering the message.

I remember I was once at my parents' place, casually moving around the house, I wasn't really aware that I was humming this melody all along. My grandma was there and at one point I realized she was looking at me with teary eyes and she said my grandfather used to sing this song. (My grandfather was a musician, he passed away when I was a kid, I don't remember him that much, just some moments and feelings of love and dearness for him). Knowing this, this song gives me a feeling of heritage and belonging, connection to somebody close to my heart even after they are gone. It is very dear to me now.

Od kad seke nismo zapjevale (Since when sisters we havent sung)

(bosnian ganga singing from Podorašac, North Herzegovina (Bosnia and Hertzegovina) learned by an archive recording)

Julijana Lešić: Since I am the only person in the group coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, I felt a great responsibility towards this song. And even though I did not grow up with the sound of Ganga, I did so with a similar sound and musical expression in my family.

I’ve been on quite an interesting journey discovering this song and its layers, meaning and origins. The first time I heard it was during our rehearsal through an old field recording. I immediately noticed the second intervals, so precise that they’re best described with the word “usijecanje” (engl. "cutting in"). That fascinating interval evokes different emotions, but the ones that stand out to me the most are awe, fear and respect. Fear because the sound is associated with ancient traditions older than we can imagine or comprehend, and respect because I feel it as an inseparable part of myself that is still relatively unknown to me. The song lyrics resonate with me and my beliefs, echoing a powerful call for feminist solidarity and unity.

I got to know Ganga additionally and more thoroughly through the book „Umjetnost pjevanja gange“ by the researcher and ethnomusicologist Ankica Petrović. The book helped me understand and perceive the controversial status of Ganga in today's societies of the former Yugoslavia even more clearly. Petrović is also responsible for the earlier mentioned field recording of Ganga, which was performed by Rahima, Mejra and Habiba Slutanić from the village of Podorašac, municipality of Konjic. All the performers are as old as my late grandmother Anđa, who was also once a singer in one of Ankica Petrović’s many field recordings, which emphasizes this personal journey with Ganga for me even more.

Službu služi Viden dobar junak (Been in service, Viden, a good hero)

(serbian “na bas” from Jablanica near Boljevac (Eastern Serbia) learned by an archive recording)

Zvezdana Anastasija Ostojić: Brother's love for sister is the theme of many folk songs. Although very often listeners first notice the relationship of the Viden hero towards his wife, his relationship towards his sister Vidosava is what the folk poet highlights. While the woman doesn't even have a name, which makes her an almost impersonal actor in the drama, Vidosava, who gives the eye sight for brother Viden, is the one who should be guarded like the eyes in the head (both the female name Vidosava and the male name Viden has the word VID in it, which means the eye sight). The strength of sisterly - brotherly love so powerfully witnessed by the play of words and melody is what has always attracted me to this song.

Lički ojkan (“Ojkan” from Lika)

(“na bas” song generally from Lika area (Croatia), a shared croatian/serbian tradition learned by many archive recordings)

Jovana Lukić: “Ojkan” is a name for a melody and it is not so often that melodies have names. This underlines the popularity and the strong character of it. The name itself is given by the syllable “Oj” which is a refrain at the very beginning and it can be translated as “Hey” - it is a call for your attention because you are about to hear something very important. These “Oj” calls at the beginning of the verses were and are very characteristic for the epic gusle singing where the singer would tell you a story usually about heroes. Like that, Ojkan is by its structure lyrical but by its meaning, expression and attitude is epic. It is usually sung by men with so much dignity which is very much important because many wars have passed through Lika for many centuries. Song has to be sung tight without any chance to be knocked down just like the people of Lika. It is a place of hardly imaginary nature - vast valleys with big rocks coming out of them, bounded with thick woods and the biggest mountain in Croatia, admirable Velebit which is a witness of many sufferings during World War II.