Milestones

Ekatarina Velika

Name: Ekatarina Velika – Ljubav
Item: Ljubav
Author: Federico Romagnoli

Ljubav

1987 (Pgp rtb)

art-rock, new wave, post-punk

by Federico Romagnoli

Šarlo Akrobata, a post-punk band with an anarchic, experimental streak, disbanded in 1981, not before leaving a profound mark on Yugoslavia's cultural underground. Their singer and guitarist, Milan Mladenović, founded Katarina II the following year. The name of the new project referenced Catherine II of Russia, but it lasted only one album, due to the departure of guitarist Dragomir "Gagi" Mihajlović. To avoid legal repercussions and controversy, the band renamed itself Ekatarina Velika (transl. Catherine the Great), thus staying true to the character. Mladenović was joined by bassist Bojan Pečar and keyboardist Margita Stefanović, while the drummer changed on a rotating basis.

"Ekatarina Velika" (1985) and "S' vetrom uz lice" (1986) were released on the Slovenian state label Zkp Rtvlj, which failed to guarantee them the print runs they deserved (today several songs from that period are classics of the local rock canon, but at the time sales never exceeded 20,000 copies per record).

For the recording of "Ljubav", which took place between August and September 1987, things seemed to change: the album was distributed by Belgrade's Pgp Rtb [Note 1], with far greater resources at its disposal. The two most popular Serbian bands of those years – Bajaga i Instruktori and Riblja Čorba – both recorded for the label: the band seemed poised for its big leap.

"Ljubav" was released on 2 October, and on 26 December that year it received a gold record for 50,000 copies sold: although it was their first significant result, it still fell well short of the figures achieved by the bands mentioned above. If anything, that number risks distorting the true role of Ekatarina Velika (from here on Ekv, as they themselves sometimes referred to themselves for convenience), who were never simply a band for devoted fans, in the way that, in Italy, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti's bands might be: their songs are still known today to the majority of the Serbo-Croatian population.

One might assume a posthumous reassessment brought about by the unusually tragic fate that befell them. The three original members did indeed die prematurely, at unrelated moments: Mladenović of a fulminant pancreatic tumor in 1994 (aged 36), Pečar of a heart attack in 1998 (aged 38), and Stefanović of Aids-related complications in 2002 (aged 43). However, that alone doesn't explain why the band was already among the most followed on the live circuit at the time, selling out Zagreb's Kulušić for five nights running in 1986 and Belgrade's Hala Pionir for two in 1987, or why they were invited in 1991 to "Yutel za Mir", the anti-war concert held in Sarajevo on 28 July 1991, on a bill that otherwise featured only top-selling acts.

The only possible explanation is that Ekv already had a powerful impact live. The fact that they sold more concert tickets than records can be attributed to a multitude of factors: Pgp Rtb's reluctance to push their promotion once the initial print runs sold out (they were perceived as a foreign body within the local establishment); the difficulty of gaining a foothold in rural areas due to their lyrics and sophisticated image (today that obstacle has been overcome, and you can even come across cover bands of theirs in villages); and an audience with countercultural leanings and a particularly young age, with little purchasing power.

"Ljubav" was recorded in Belgrade and mixed in Zagreb, with production entrusted to Theodore Yanni, an Australian musician who left a significant mark on the Yugoslav scene between the late Eighties and early Nineties (his hand can be traced behind the scenes of albums by Branimir Štulić, Bijelo Dugme, Električni Orgazam and Oktobar 1864). On drums sat Srđan Todorović, who came from Disciplina Kičme and is also known as an actor.

The tracklist opens with "Zemlja", the manifesto of the values running through the band:

This land is for us,

this land is for all our people,

this home is for us,

this home is for all our children.

Look at me, oh, look at me, with the eyes of a child.

In this land I see salvation,

from sleep I'm awakened by a voice I recognize,

as long as the branches caress our bodies,

as long as the shadows make us a blanket.

I hear “come back,”

I hear “stay,”

leave me.

I hear “come back,”

I hear “stay,”

forgive me.

In every defeat I've seen a piece of freedom,

and when it's over,

for me, know this, that's exactly when it begins.

I hear “come back,”

I hear “stay,”

don't go, no.

“Zemlja” literally means “earth,” understood both as “planet” and as “soil,” but also, figuratively, as “country.” This layered meaning deepens the song's significance, later performed at the aforementioned “Yutel za Mir,” and from there transformed into a kind of cosmopolitan anthem against the divisions within Yugoslav territory. [Note 2]

Like many young intellectuals of their generation, Ekv were firmly pluralist and considered themselves Yugoslav. Indeed, while the band was to all intents and purposes from Belgrade, one only has to look at Mladenović's life to understand these sentiments: his father was Serbian, his mother Croatian, he was born in Zagreb and spent his school years in Sarajevo, before settling permanently in Belgrade and meeting the other members of the band.

Their desire for a united Yugoslavia nonetheless ruled out the use of force to prevent the state's breakup, which meant that the declarations of independence by the various republics should simply have been accepted as fact: an approach sharply at odds with the nationalism gaining ground at the time, particularly in Serbia. When war broke out, Ekv threw themselves into numerous pacifist initiatives, which still make them especially beloved in Croatia and Bosnia today.

If the album is so important, it's not only for the values it conveyed, obviously, but also for the position it occupies in Mladenović's musical journey. Katarina II had indulged in a dark, jagged post-punk that still bore the imprint of Šarlo Akrobata's sound, while adding atmospheric elements drawn from the gothic rock of the era. Once they became Ekv, they further refined the formula and reached full maturity with the album "S' vetrom uz lice", where the exploration was no longer aimed at choices that might prove jarring for the listener, but rather at layering sound and structure, with an epic, melodic post-punk dense with rivulets of keyboards, effect-laden guitars and choruses, but also sporadic, surprising forays into both eastern and western folk music.

“Ljubav” not only preserves this method but amplifies it, as immediately shown by “Zemlja,” a march driven by a riffs guitar line somewhere between post-punk and hard rock, with a hint of Indian music given by a tone reminiscent of a sitar.

"Pored mene" is both a love song and an examination of the doubts caused by the hardening of nationalist sentiment mentioned earlier: Mladenović addresses his loved one, but the surrounding space is no idyll where their relationship can be fulfilled, but rather a dark landscape in which the two feel surrounded.

In the twilight the shadows grow heavy

and they crawl across our faces.

The splendor in the eyes

is deep and unreal.

We travel with words

and we think with our steps,

you and I, you and I.

In the twilight your cold hands

caress my chest.

I forget, I forget

that only you know

how many of them there are.

By my side, be by my side.

In the twilight, I know that you know that I know

everything about things that don't matter.

Behind the hill there is a field,

behind the field there's a wood,

behind the wood there's a house,

behind the house there's a road,

that leads to you.

This one too is a post-punk track with hard rock shades, though less martial than the previous one. The verse recurs only twice, at the beginning, after which we get a pre-chorus, the chorus (the first time it's accompanied by a synth run that never returns later on), a bridge, followed once more by pre-chorus and chorus, then a further digression. Towards the end the pre-chorusis stripped down to a wordless choral crescendo. If we were to schematize it, we'd get AABCDBCECBC, excluding instrumental digressions from the count.

The verse rests on a classic C minor progression, but after the pre-chorus it takes a dramatic turn, shifting the E flat chord from major to minor. There follows a rapid descending sequence of notes leading to C minor and then A flat major, deviating from more conventional progressions, which don't include C minor.

The instrumental backbone is driven by two riffs: one on bass, obsessive and mixed well up front (though it allows itself considerable digressions in the second half), the other on guitar, marked by a syncopated pattern in high registers - less prominent, but essential, as it weaves in between the vocal lines.

It's striking how a song so atypical, both structurally and harmonically, ends up sounding so fluid and easy to remember.

The title track also describes a romantic relationship, with more traditional, romantic lyrics, yet without losing sight of the broader context, finding room for a message of brotherhood toward the Yugoslav peoples. The second verse reads:

And all my comrades have long since

been your comrades too.

The ancient Slavs had the dual

in their dictionary,

and when I want to say "I",

I say "we",

and when I speak of myself

in truth I'm thinking of us

The balance between new wave and hard rock continues, with the drums indulging in kick-drum flams and brief solos reminiscent of the style of Rush. The guitar plays very heavy riffs, though their force is softened by the heavy use of the flanger effect. The chorus, while keeping its muscular attitude, puts the keyboard rather than the guitar in the spotlight.

Mladenović's voice showcases this duality between post-punk and classic rock: it ranges from baritone tones to the most aggressive screams, passing through falsetto. Even the use of vibrato is ambivalent: partly it's the crooner style of David Bowie, partly it's hard rock, with a timbre not far from Ian Gillan.

The first side of the vinyl closes with "7 dana", a six-and-a-half-minute gothic crescendo that rises out of atmospheric keyboard textures and culminates in an epic solo in which Mladenović takes on the role of guitar hero, reviving a figure that in the English-speaking world seemed incompatible with post-punk.

The lyrics are credited to Stefanović and are believed to deal, albeit in a rather cryptic way, with his heroin addiction (the verses are nonetheless in the masculine, since they're sung by Mladenović):

Seven days alone

and down and up, look for me.

Seven days alone,

find, put, show me.

Let it hurt as long as it hurts,

grip your skin with your hands,

hold my fear beneath me,

shoot the sweat with your nails.

Once again this time,

as long as it seeks and calls,

I will fix it.

Once again a few more times,

as it emanates and prays,

I will give.

Hold me, love me,

take my

wet neck in your fist.

Keep the time

and keep yourself for me,

I would be your brother,

you are my brother.

Break away, step aside

from yourself.

"Voda" opens the second side with a piece of landscape poetry, but where such a device is sometimes used to escape the tensions of the surrounding world, Mladenović's lyrics instead sink into a fatalistic nostalgia that recalls the scenery of 19th-century Romanticism:

Let the water carry you into oblivion.

The shores are empty as a desert

and only the people who follow with their eyes

[see] what the current brings.

The eyes are empty as a desert

and a bite on the lips says

that here there once was an ocean.

Distant cities on the water,

like ships on the water,

you know,

water carries everything away.

The first line is repeated like a mantra, almost whispered, while the rest is sung at full voice. The song opens quietly with keyboard textures and acoustic arpeggios, as if to create a bucolic backdrop once again unusual for post-punk, before unveiling a chorus embroidered by a frantic synthesizer riffs and veering off into a psychedelic coda, with the guitar indulging in a solo thick with wah-wah.

"Prvi i poslednji dan" is the only moment on the record that comes close to synth-pop, due to the keyboards being mixed much higher than the other instruments and the absence of electric guitars, while "Ljudi iz gradova" is the tightest rhythmically, with an ascending chord progression by semitones, emphasized after the chorus by the 4/4 beat struck in unison by all the instruments.

"Zid" is a folk-rock piece steeped in mystical symbols, driven by acoustic guitar played in sixteenth notes, dense with chord changes, marked by the presence of piano and percussion, as well as a synthesizer line that emulates a vocal timbre, moving from the Dorian scale of the verses to the Mixolydian of the chorus (once again, an uncommon element in pop-rock music).

The lyrics are hard to decipher, seemingly pointing to a Christ-like figure, but given Mladenović's known agnosticism, it's more likely a metaphorical device meant to exorcise his own anxieties.

First he kisses the unfortunate,

then he calms the hotheads,

sews little dresses for the dolls

and strings the hunters' bows.

Find me,

in the room where the day dies,

in my cold and rainy rooms,

On the wall a drawing of a black worm.

Look at the wall,

from a state of black, dead, empty unconsciousness.

We are free,

I was born completely alone.

Reconcile dogs and cats with words,

feed the hungry with your eyes

touch the untouchable with your palm

and save us elusive ones.

The wind climbs toward the hills,

a stone in the hill, salt in the bowels.

Look at the wall,

on the wall the shadows of our years.

Closing the record is “Tonemo”, the most depressed track Ekv had recorded up to that point. Gothic rock pitting dense weaves of acoustic guitars against thundering electric surges mixed low in the background, it boasts an instrumental refrain in which the piano indulges in descending note sequences, almost as if to mimic the title (“We're Sinking”).

Once again, the disintegration of a love affair mirrors that of the Yugoslav world:

We spent the first days in wonder,

we spent the first days in glances,

I'm not here,

I'm neither there nor here.

While I drink the juice from your eyes,

while I lick the salt from your fingers,

we're sinking.

We spent the first days in lies,

we spent the first days in remorse.

No, the days didn't wait long,

the days fled, crawled, lingered in the air.

1987, the year "Ljubav" was released, marks a decisive moment of acceleration toward the breakup of Yugoslavia. The economic crisis was worsening, financial scandals were coming to light, and inflation, unemployment and strikes were on the rise, all of which certain members of the political and intellectual elite exploited to point fingers at scapegoats and carve out space for their own power and influence. In particular, Slobodan Milošević — following his famous visit to the Kosovo Serb protesters, whose defender he cast himself as — was building his autocratic, nationalist power base in the Republic of Serbia.

With its bold musical contaminations and its pessimistic symbolism, the album stands as an extraordinary testament to a society living out its last moments of civility, teetering on the edge of the abyss.

[Note 1] Yugoslavia boasted numerous record labels, all state-controlled and distributed more or less evenly among the various republics. The largest was Jugoton, based in Zagreb, with Pgp Rtb close behind.

[Note 2] The success of “Zemlja” remains a cornerstone of the mythology surrounding EKV in the post-Yugoslav countries. It's an unofficial anthem, a generational autobiography of what music critic Ante Perković called the “seventh Yugoslav republic”: that imaginary space of rock and urban counterculture eager to tear down censorship and dogma, yet still wanting to remain united, fully realizing the coexistence and pluralism of the Yugoslav model. Even today, the slogan “the land is ours” is used by non-nationalist political actors. Bosnia's Social Democratic Party chose it as a slogan in 2018, and it was recently quoted by current Croatian president Zoran Milanović.

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18/09/2022

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This article is an English translation of the original Italian text by Federico Romagnoli, published on OndaRock.it. It was translated with the help of artificial intelligence, under the editorial responsibility of OndaRock's editor-in-chief, Claudio Fabretti.

Read the original in Italian · About the English edition