“The biggest problem of writing any text for me has always been the exclusion of personal opinion and attitude about something so that the picture and description of something I want to say would be objective.
Let’s start this building of Shkodra. Some bad virus started some time ago and stopped the whole world. People, jobs, events all stopped because of the situation and the fear of the disease which is very painful and unpredictable. Events in front of super markets stopped happening, pubs got empty, concerts became forbidden. Let me not procrastinate too much because of this new situation that befell humanity. Leaders decided to ban culture, sports, the movement of people. They mostly banned all things of a cultural nature that require a certain intellectual capacity and are not in conjunction with some Kristijans, Miljanas and Lukases …
It happened one day, a long time ago, I can’t remember the date when it all started, when an artist from sacred music decided to start a project called “Echos”. The project, which their love of creativity, and where others could also enjoy it. This experiment has given many people, including me, a whole new dimension of understanding music and understanding the person who makes it. Something that from the aspect of expert opinion (I’m not an expert, just a simple listener who listens to a lot of music and I can say this is good and this is not good) should be musically almost perfect. While listening to Echos, I heard a lot of new tapes, learned the names of many old ones that I used to admire when I hear them, I met new people who also adore this type of music.
The Echos project is a kind of evolution for a listener of progressive music and music in general. Through this tragic-comic period of our lives, and a lot of listening to what the creativity of these artists has to offer, every day I longed more and more for that moment when one of them will stand in front of me and finally play for me and make me scream and cry of delight and happiness that I am privileged to listen to what I love, standing just a few meters from the creator.
And then it happened, the date and the name from the title, things were slowly coming into place.
At the beginning of July, the weather was kind of weird, you couldn’t know what to wear, whether you need an umbrella and some long sleeves or an extra summer t-shirt to change because there are over 40 degrees on the asphalt. These are all everyday trivial things we struggle with, in relation to the main event that was expected, in relation to the joy of finally seeing and hanging out with people I don’t see so often, or I would meet for the first time in person. People who share similar emotions, love, and feel similar music. I don’t know how to name people with whom you can talk about many things in life, except friends.
Friends, in this case, gathered in a community that aims to promote music, normal behavior, a bunch of other clever things that aim to rise above stereotypes, petty bourgeoisie, and other side effects caused by the moral stumble of society. Friends gathered to share the experience of magic, prepared by one of the greatest wizards in the world that evening, in the first lines of Barutana.
And so we got into the club, and there behind the decks, he was playing something light. I guess he was waiting for the spoiled, lazy, or somehow prevented audience to arrive, so that the party can start. The man was standing there in front of us, he came, something is finally happening. I don’t have to crawl somewhere around to listen to him live, or to stare in a chat to see if someone writes something when a tape starts and experience Marky’s (Aleksandar ID Markovic) state of consciousness. Everything is slowly coming together, there are almost everyone who should be there, those who could not come are either justifiably absent, or have invented something in order not to come. Absolutely nothing is more important than the fact that he is there and ready for us. Now there is only one place in the world where we are all together, one for another, and all for himself…
The choice of the tapes and his way of performing in front of us all night, are perhaps the best thing that has happened on the progressive scene in our country so far. We might agree on how several factors made it easier for this journey to succeed, but that in no way diminishes the perfect musical concept packed into that night. Each track in its right place and the right moment, each with its own story and rhythm. People are happy, they dance, they laugh, it’s amazing how many smiles on their faces…
I’m thinking, is there anything that I, as a famous (as young people say) hater, could find negative? It could have lasted longer, that’s all, and it doesn’t matter how long because I wouldn’t mind if I was still in Barutana and if he still played. In fact, I’m still there, a part of me stayed in that place that night and with that man, there was a part of my soul left to keep the memory of the beauty that happened there, of something that will be remembered in this head, something that people cannot feel if they do not most sincerely like what they are listening to.
I have prolonged this writing, although it does not matter to me whether someone will read this at all. This is something I will keep in my memory, and anyone who finds themselves in these words and tapes that helped me put all this together, has my blessing to say this is also their text. Hoping that Mr. Guy J will return to us as soon as possible with new magic, I want to thank him and all of you who made one night indescribable and helped create a sense of happiness that still holds me.
Thank you all and I hope that we will see each other again as soon as possible at some new event that will lead us to such conclusions.”
By Vladan Djuric
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