#1 MOOGER FOOGER is a band that celebrates a kind of musical responsibility that goes hand in hand with advanced thinking and common sense. A group which unites and actively looks after the independent status of creativity. Their music rises above cultural vulgarity, and what is more, it stands tall, facing the silicone tides. And quite cheekily, in the only sensible way possible – with gigs, inspirational hangouts, and lots of productivity. Constantly! Joined by numerous other creative types who defy the shackles of the slave mentality. Henceforth, it seems that the band’s leader Sead Hadžić–Secko and the rest of the gang are fully committed to their one intention, which is to create music: experimental, surreal, post-punk, socially-politically, uncompromising indi-rock with an edge, with teeth, hearth and brains.
We are still breathing in the freshness of “4th of July”, but, here we are, not even a full year has passes, and the boys are once again summoning us in, with the album titled “La Kana”, after the bar located in the Old Skopje Bazaar. However, “La Kana” is not a club or a booze-bar, rather, an intimate stop on the city’s urban map. Its zeitgeist status comes as the result of a string of interesting alternative musical performances, events, screenings, promotions, theme sets, and first and foremost, due to its characteristic niche, as a convenient meeting place for artists and their creative energies. Perhaps this is why the news of MOOGER FOOGER’s new album had instantly electrified the subculture’s antennae.
“La Kana” was recorded in Sonic 57 Studio and contains a packaged arrangement of 12 themes by around twenty musicians, instrumentalists, creative types, harbingers of the domestic indi-scene. It acts as a compilation and could thus be freely called ‘MOOGER FOOGER and Friends’. The parties involved enter temptation mode in order to create a shared fluidity which would then present itself as a kind of sound basis for further listening exploration. Compared to their previous albums, “La Kana” is slightly lighter and more melodious. However, this does not mean that it should be approached lightly or with reservations. Quite the opposite, it takes the listener on an emotional rollercoaster through a dreamy, multi-layered guitar ambience. At the same time, it offers plenty of verve, esthetics, distorted bits, chaos, psychedelics, poetics, melancholy, rock-en-roll spirit of revolt. All of it skillfully balanced and neatly packaged.
In fact, all of the songs have been adjusted according #2to the artists involved in the project. “La Kana”’s sound is colored by the specificities and sensibilities of Secko, Saško Kostov, Adi Imeri, Goran Trajkovski, Xhabir Deralla, Gino…The theme “Novo Lisiče”, one of the catchiest songs on the CD, allows us to feel the mighty vocals and creative spirits of Gotra, in “Wake me up” and “So Real” we come across the electric talents of Kostov, while in “Standing at the top of the world”, we are faced with Imeri’s guitar explosions. A song to remember is also the enchanting “Girl Nadja” made by the musicologist and journalist Tina Ivanova, while many would certainly rejoice when they hear the lovely and sincere approach to “Your Garden”. The album includes basses by Ivan Bejkov and Oliver Josifovski, trombone by Branko Ilievski, mandolin by Muhamed Ibraimi, harmonics by Oliver Mitrevski, a text by the bishop Metodij Zlatanov, saxophone by Vasko Bojadžiski, but also vocals by Sonja Dimitrioska and Zoran Tortevski. Certainly, we cannot leave out the guitars by Ognen Mangarovski, Djole Maksimovski and Igor Stojanovski. “La Kana” contains lyrics in Macedonian and English, accompanying a mixture of classical and electronic instrumentalism, while a part of the said vocals are synthetized and subdued. This in turn was the original intention. For they act as shapers of the hypnotic atmosphere, while remaining in constant contact with the kaleidoscope of sounds.
MOOGER FOOGER is a musical band that, like many other countless protectors of the independent progressive spirit, currently lives in a kind of symbiosis with the club “La Kana”. This inspirational club was forced to change locations three times so far, but it did not die off, nor was it seized and subsequently killed off by the pretentions musical winds. It pulsates in tune with the rhythms of the eternal seekers. The MOOGER FOOGER universe retells and feeds off all that “La Kana” experiences on a daily basis – a journey into new and uncharted moments, wild and exhilarating, rich and thrilling… “Welcome! I know that the road which frightens you is equally narrow and steep. But, how wide are the doors that lead you into nothing and nowhere?!”
The Macedonian version of this text was originally published in the Macedonian daily Utrinski Vesnik on October 9th, 2012.
Translated by Bela Gligorova