"Iz Kajkavskih Krajeva" by Lado (1966)

 

It took me a whole lifetime to pull my head out of my ass and start paying some attention to what is actually traditional folk music - like many youngsters, I grew up idolising everything that was current trend and that logically would not be songs of my grandparents. Its a generational thing - youth has its own reasons, where music taste is often reflection of peer pressure; traditional folk music is just not part of that culture. I worshipped big, massive stadium concerts of international rock stars, thinking how impressive there were, never in a million years would it occur to me to look out for something played on old rural instruments, by some village musicians. It takes a certain awareness to  realise that pop music is manufactured product (carefully packaged to appeal to teenagers who will spend money on it) and there is so much more to music - one of the many alternatives is traditional folk.

Where newfangled "turbo folk' (hugely popular, party music) took some elements of traditional music and combined it into some mutant of Romani/Klezmer/Turkish mix, original traditional folk usually comes strictly connected to a specific area. During my childhood I was not really exposed to it so it was later in life that I started checking it out - imagine my surprise when I heard this 1966. album and discovered that it was as brilliant as celebrated Bulgarian voices - now, why on earth this type of music has absolutely 0 support at home but its renowned around the world? My guess would be because back home we associate it with rural background and everything backward that we want to sweep under the rug, you know, leave the village, come to the city, that is embarrassing past - one has to grow up, mature and look at it differently to appreciate what is uniquely part of local charm. In my case, this started to dawn on me once I left my homeland and looked back from a different perspective - suddenly I was genuinely very interested in all of it that never appealed to me before. 

Ansambl Lado is at this point venerable institution that kept the torch going on for more than 70 years - its combination of singers, dancers and musicians specialised in traditional folk music and they seriously work on keeping this fire alive - female branch Ladarice grew out of this main group - on this particular LP album they are focused on area of Zagorje which is Northern part of Croatia towards Austria. What you hear is a perfectly conducted choir but with a twist - they are village voices of full-throated singers who sound incredibly earthy, ancient, exciting, lusty and uplifting. Occasionally there is a soloist but generally its a thrilling combination of male and female voices, backed by all sorts of instruments that sometimes give music the medieval feeling. I was familiar with the phenomenon of Bulgarian voices (famous all over the world) so this hit me like a comet, genuinely powerful music that actually comes from my own backyard (and I kinda understand the lyrics, if not the context). There are several conductors involved here so my guess is that this was archival collection that highlighted their work up to this point. Magnificent.