Your most recent projects, released in 2017, are very different in style: The World of the Devils album is a kind of acoustic collection of songs you created for theatrical performances, while the heavy voice on new anthems - as the title suggests - is heavy energy statues, as it sings about the uncertain times we live in. What is the reason for this aesthetic polarization?
Although they are such different albums, they have a lot in common, but first and foremost, they are a response to my long-standing record silence. Since the unofficial breakup of the Anastasia band at the beginning of the new millennium, I have dedicated myself solely to composing music for theater. With that, I took care of my existence while remaining on the music scene. The original plan was to realize an album with exactly the same songs in acoustic and electric arrangements, but I soon realized that the production was not going to work out. So I split the plan into two solo albums - with four tracks being repeated.
Considering these albums in terms of content, one might even say that the former punk spirit practiced in the first two groups, Affective Charge and Saraceni, has once again awakened in you.
I could never get rid of the feeling that I owed something to the 1980s. That is when I started something that had a lot of potential, but I did not explore and develop enough, even though I must emphasize in my breath that I am deeply convinced that I have been composing the same music for all these years and that I am only trying to perfect that song , which I started designing in high school but never managed to finish. Genres are changing and I don't belong to them. I use them as tools because my signature is something of a genre, something that can float once in this genre, another in another genre. I learned this in theater from directors and, most of all, actors - regardless of genre, each role impresses its authorial seal.
At first, your seal was very noticeable within the dark new wave - although folklore in the mid-1980s was increasingly refined by rock forms, but the Padot na Byzantium and Mizar groups did otherwise. They have become almost synonymous with Old Slavic, especially Macedonian cultural heritage…
It is purely a matter of taste. The taste cannot be inherited, for example from parents, but can only be built and upgraded. Someone once said that tastes are not discussed, and most have accepted that flair - as a kind of peaceful wing in the creation of false cultural calm and politically correct speech. I have never been a follower of everything that folklore and tradition have to offer, and there is a huge amount of trash and superficiality within them. During my many years of exploring the Macedonian cultural heritage and in discussions with folklorists and ethnomusicologists, I realized that it contained a lot of "smuggled" things, false or stolen art. Diversity in the use of tradition, even when it came to spirituality and folklore in the music of the bands Mizar and Anastasia,
Anastasia has left a huge trace in popular music, but when mentioned, this group seems to immediately shift to the movie Before the Rain. Does that bother you?
No, because some things need to happen easily to a person in life. I did not know director Milch Manchevsky before participating in this film. And, frankly, I'm still not clear today why they invited us to participate. Up until that point, we had only released one EP and we weren't particularly popular or recognizable. Much more sounding names were mentioned in this movie, but in the end they chose us.
The music for the said film succeeded in something remarkable: it lived an independent life, past the film itself, which succeeds only the greatest. What has success brought to you and taken away?
It has brought us considerable popularity and a lot of concerts across Europe, and brought a series of friends and naive dreams of a music industry based on spontaneity, honesty and humanity. After that experience, I didn't want to release an album for ten years. Well, the love of music was ultimately more than disappointing.
Three years ago, the vinyl format finally released an album by your former band Padot on Byzantium The Beginning and the Place, featuring the only two studio recordings of the band and a recording of the concert. How did you feel about this outcome?
Totally cold. The saddest part is that the album came out with a thirty year delay. The fall for Byzantium may be quite a myth for some, but for me it is only the ancient past.
Goran Trajkoski, makedonski glasbenik: Tudi tradicija je prepolna smeti in površnosti
Začel je kot punker, vendar zelo hitro osvojil vse postmoderne poteze novega vala, v katerega je vnašal predvsem duhovne elemente bizantinske dediščine in pravoslavne obrednosti. In koncerti skupin Padot na Vizantija, Mizar in Anastasia so bili v resnici obredi, kjer je preteklost komunicirala s sedanjostjo, z najskrivnostnejšimi prvinami temnega novega vala. Goran Trajkoski, ki se je pozneje zapisal tudi filmu – le kdo ne pozna čudovite partiture za mojstrovino Pred dez jem, ki je bila med drugim nagrajena z beneškim zlatim levom? – in predvsem gledališču, bo jutri s svojo skupino nastopil v Gali hali na Metelkovi.
»Globoko v sebi sem prepričan, da vsa leta skladam enako glasbo in da poskušam zgolj izpopolniti tisto pesem, ki sem jo začel snovati z e v srednji šoli, a mi je nikoli ni uspelo končati,« pravi Goran Trajkoski. (Foto: S. Dimovski)
Vaša zadnja projekta, izdana leta 2017, sta si slogovno zelo različna: album Na svetov ubavina je nekakšna akustična zbirka pesmi, ki ste jih ustvarili za gledališke predstave, medtem ko Teškiot glas na novite himni – kot namiguje z e naslov – kipi od tez ke energije, saj poje o negotovih časih, v katerih z ivimo. Kaj je razlog te estetske polarizacije?
Čeprav gre za tako različna albuma, imata veliko skupnega, v prvi vrsti pa sta odziv na mojo dolgoletno diskografsko tišino. Od neuradnega razpada skupine Anastasia v začetku novega tisočletja sem se posvetil izključno skladanju glasbe za gledališče. S tem sem poskrbel za svojo eksistenco in hkrati obstal na glasbeni sceni. Prvotni načrt je bil, da realiziram album s povsem enakimi pesmimi v akustičnih in električnih aranz majih, vendar sem kmalu spoznal, da se produkcijsko ne bo izšlo. Načrt sem zato razdelil na dva samostojna albuma – s tem da se štiri skladbe ponovijo.
Če ta albuma pretehtamo po vsebinski plati, bi lahko celo rekli, da se je v vas znova prebudil nekdanji punkerski duh, ki sta ga prakticirali v prvih dveh skupinah, Afektiven naboj in Saraceni.
Nikoli se nisem mogel znebiti občutka, da sem osemdesetim ostal nekaj dolz an. Takrat sem namreč začel nekaj, kar je imelo veliko potenciala, ki pa ga nisem dovolj raziskal in razvil, četudi moram v isti sapi poudariti, da sem globoko v sebi prepričan, da z e vsa ta leta skladam enako glasbo in da poskušam zgolj izpopolniti tisto pesem, ki sem jo začel oblikovati z e v srednji šoli, a mi je nikoli ni uspelo končati. &1;anri se spreminjajo in jaz jim ne pripadam. Uporabljam jih kot orodja, saj je moj avtorski podpis nekaj nadz anrskega, nekaj, kar lahko izplava enkrat v tej, drugič v drugi zvrsti. Tega sem se naučil v gledališču od rez iserjev in predvsem igralcev – ne glede na z anr vsaki vlogi vtisnejo svoj avtorski pečat.
Vaš pečat je bil najprej zelo opazen znotraj temnega novega vala – resda je folklora sredi osemdesetih let vedno bolj plemenitila rockovske obrazce, vendar sta skupini Padot na Vizantija in Mizar to počeli drugače. Postali sta skorajda z e sinonim za staroslovansko, zlasti makedonsko kulturno dediščino…
Gre izključno za stvar okusa. Okusa namreč ni mogoče podedovati, na primer od staršev, temveč ga je mogoče le graditi in nadgrajevati. Nekdo je nekoč rekel, da se o okusih ne razpravlja, in večina je to floskulo sprejela – kot nekakšno miroljubno krilatico v oblikovanju laz nega kulturnega spokoja in politično korektnega nagovora. Nikoli nisem bil privrz enec vsega, kar ponujata folklora in tradicija, tudi znotraj njiju je ogromna količina smeti in površnosti. Med dolgoletnim raziskovanjem makedonske kulturne dediščine ter v pogovorih s folkloristi in etnomuzikologi sem spoznal, da je v njej veliko »pretihotapljenih« stvari, laz ne ali pokradene umetnosti. Raznovrstnost pri rabi tradicije, tudi ko je šlo za duhovnost in folkloro v glasbi zasedb Mizar in Anastasia, izhaja predvsem iz mojega odnosa do te tematike na podlagi dolgoletnega oblikovanja okusa.
Anastasia je pustila ogromno sled v popularni glasbi, vendar se zdi, da se ob omembi te skupine fokus takoj preslika na film Pred dez jem. Vas to moti?
Ne, kajti nekatere stvari se morajo človeku v z ivljenju enostavno zgoditi. Pred sodelovanjem pri tem filmu rez iserja Milča Mančevskega nisem poznal. In po pravici povedano mi še danes ni jasno, zakaj so prav nas povabili k sodelovanju. Do tistega trenutka smo izdali samo en EP in nismo bili kaj posebno popularni ali prepoznavni. Veliko bolj zveneča imena so se omenjala pri tem filmu, vendar so na koncu izbrali ravno nas.
Glasbi za omenjeni film je uspelo nekaj neverjetnega: zaz ivela je samostojno z ivljenje, mimo samega filma, kar uspe le največjim. Kaj vam je uspeh prinesel in kaj odnesel?
Prinesel nam je precejšnjo priljubljenost in veliko koncertov po Evropi, odnesel pa vrsto prijateljev ter naivne sanje o glasbeni industriji, ki bi temeljila na spontanosti, korektnosti in človečnosti. Po tej izkušnji deset let nisem hotel izdati albuma. No, ljubezen do glasbe je bila na koncu večja od razočaranja.
Pred tremi leti je v vinilnem formatu končno izšel album vaše nekdanje skupine Padot na Vizantija Početok i kraj, na katerem so edina dva studijska posnetka zasedbe in posnetek koncerta. Kako ste občutili ta izid?
Povsem hladno. Najbolj z alostno je, da je album izšel s tridesetletno zamudo. Padot na Vizantija je za nekatere morda res z e kar nekakšen mit, toda zame je le davna preteklost.