Anastasia - Byzantium in the computer age

Anastasia is a band from Skopje, Macedonia, who write heavily hybridized ethnic music, poised between traditional folk and electronics. The most important showcase for their work was the soundtrack to Milcho Manchewski's film "Before the Rain" (Before the rain). It was one of the most evocative and dramatic films of the Nineties, telling of how the war tearing apart the former Yugoslavia was also spilling over into Macedonia, with its historical contradictions and ethnic conflicts. Anastasia's intense, moving music was a fundamental ingredient of the film. The eponymous album went on to sell several thousand copies worldwide.

The sound of the Macedonian group, active for about a decade, draws on the Byzantine era, passed down through Slavic Orthodox sacred music and enriched with infectious rhythms. Traditional instruments such as the kaval (flute), the gajda (bagpipe) and the tapan (drum) combine with modern technology: computers, samplers, synthesizers. "It's a magical sound, born from something primordial, something mythical. Music that unites East and West through multifaceted rhythms and evocative melodies," writes critic Dusko Dimitrovski. It's hard to disagree. Anastasia's music manages to combine rural, archaic paganism with refined Byzantine vocal style, Balkan folk traditions with the technological pulse of modern civilization. A fusion of notes suspended in the mists of time, evoking eternal mysteries and legends.

Anastasia - namely Goran Trajkoski (vocals, bagpipe, flute), Zlatko Oridjanski (guitar, mandolin, flute and backing vocals) and Zoran Spasovski (drums, percussion, keyboards and backing vocals) - have composed several soundtracks for film, theatre and TV.

Besides Before the rain, their best-known success is the album featuring music for the 1996 theatrical production "Bachanallia". At home, they share with the Kocani Orkestar the status of the country's most acclaimed band.

In an interview with "European", Goran Trajikoski and bandmates explained the goal of their work this way: "We want to express an authentic musical language, based on the cultural influences we grew up with. It's not some kind of ethnological museum piece, but a living, pulsing tradition. It might seem like a strange comparison, but think of the Beatles. Listening to them and thinking of England are one and the same thing. When you listen to Anastasia's music, we want you to hear the sound of Macedonia".

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