INTERVIEW: VLATKO STEFANOVSKI

/, Sound, Blesok no. 118/INTERVIEW: VLATKO STEFANOVSKI

INTERVIEW: VLATKO STEFANOVSKI

I want to write another good song in my life!



The whole modern music can be called music experiment. That is not really music. You’ve taken sounds from here, samples from there… you’ve mixed them, put them together in a Cubase or in Pro Tools… you’ve done something, some mixture… That can be called “music experiment”, but for that to become music, there is a lot to be done. Today’s time is all about the wrapping. Not the content.

“MOTHER TONGUE” – HEALING ALBUM

Listening to “Mother Tongue”, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was a kind of a “healing album”… A record that is filled with emotions, core. Virtuosity. Descending to the core of the Macedonian music language.

STEFANOVSKI: I’ll very glad if that is so, because I was passing through a very difficult period myself. Through an emotional storm in regard to my private situation… And I tried to tame that storm a little by recording the album. Believe me, I was recording the album with great excitement because I was very upset privately. And disturbed. I was passing through the most difficult period in my life. Searching for comfort and cure for my soul, I have probably recorded something that may mean something to other people in the future. Probably… even certainly… I know that… I touched upon a piece of something that is very intimate and sacred. And I recorded it. It will reach some people, not necessarily all. It’s intended for those people who have a radar for my sensibility. Very simple. So, I address the people with similar sensibility. More or less – my generation. Without feeling uncomfortable, without getting into dispute with contemporary music and the contemporary audience. I recorded this with great confidence because I say to myself – this is it, this is the time in which I live, this is me in this moment, and if the frequency I offer resonates across the audience, the job is done. Mission completed. Without great ambitions to achieve that: like, oh, I have to succeed now. I have had many successful projects behind me and I am not impatient to gain success at any cost. I want to realize the projects as they come. To address the public from time to time. Record an album, play a concert, with an idea that it be something interesting and exciting. It sometimes causes lesser interest, sometimes greater interest, but that logic is very strange, very inverse. Sometimes, when you are the least ambitious, the greatest success happens. And vice versa. If you force yourself too much, if you say, “oh, now I will make an album that will be commercial and accepted”, you can fail. You can be wrong. The albums “Krushevo” and “Mother Tongue” are evidence to that. We recorded “Krushevo” in complete isolation in 1997. It was June and there was not a single soul in Krushevo. There were no tourists or people paragliding… nothing. Just a few cowboy summer days. Utterly quiet. Not a leaf was moving outside. And Miroslav Tadić and I entered that museum, the Makedonium, and we recorded in just two days the album that later became cult record.

“Mother Tongue” was recorded in four days in my studio. Fortunately, I have a good microphone, good preamplifier, good guitar, several pedals that help me spread the sound… and this album was created as a very intimate address. It probably means a great deal to people, so that react very nicely so far.

Translated byKalina Maleska
PhotographyTatjana Rantaša
2018-10-30T09:54:34+00:00 March 27th, 2018|Categories: Reviews, Sound, Blesok no. 118|0 Comments