Aida spent 5 days in Sofia and learned a lot about the Balkan music scenes. And asks himself: Why don’t we listen more closely?
When was the last time you heard a band from Sarajevo? From Nicosia? From Sofia? From Bucharest? I’ll tell you honestly: it’s been a while for me. I was all the more curious when I was invited to Sofia by the music conference SoAlive: They call themselves “The gateway to the Balkan’s music industry” and want to convince music journalists from all over the world, the international music industry and everyone else who somehow belongs to this cosmos about the music scenes in the Balkans.
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And there is good reason for this: music from the southeastern European peninsula hardly plays a role in our listening habits. One of the festival founders, the musician Ruth Koleva, argued that this is also due to discriminatory assumptions about the Balkans in general and Bulgaria in particular. Who thinks about pop culture when people hear rumors that “Macedonian teenagers” are guilty? in the election of Trump, or in films like “Wolfs” from last year people from the Balkans, from Albania, Croatia, Slovenia or Bosnia, are actually only seen as villains without identity?
Bands from Balkan countries, says Koleva, rarely appear at the big showcase festivals such as the Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg or the Great Escape in Brighton. Why is this important? Because they often decide who will get a chance to perform at festivals, on tours for well-known musicians as support or to attract attention in the next few years. What these showcase festivals can achieve has of course changed since the dominance of algorithms, but being seen as the next big thing never hurts, even if it of course means less and less in times of AI partnerships between major labels and streaming platforms.
A few Balkan states have it a little better: Croatia, with its electronic festivals, is at least a destination for partygoers from all over the world, and artists from Greece and, in recent years, especially from Turkey (which is part of the Balkans due to its European part) have managed to reach the ears of people from all over the world.
In an increasingly complicated world, it is increasingly important to listen broadly and diversely – just as literature can help you get to know and understand other cultures, music can also help. A great example is the renaissance of Anadolu Rock from Turkey in recent years and neo-Anatolian music: How much have I learned about the region through Gaye Su Akyol, who addresses politics and queerness in Turkey in her songs, through the Turkish-Dutch band Altin Gün or the British-Turkish duo Kit Sebastian, through Derya from Hamburg Yıldırım, who reinterprets old Turkish children’s songs with and without her international band Grup Şimşek, or puts political debates into music. In Bulgaria, I was blown away by the saz player and singer Ali Doğan Gönültaş, who combined the musical traditions of marginalized communities from Turkey into new songs for his trio – and in doing so actually swept the bored audience at the festival opening off their feet in every sense.
But it doesn’t always have to be a big hit, pop from other corners of the world often just leaves us with the realization that coming of age is the same melancholic, weird and emotional everywhere. Whether you’re in Berlin, Sheffield or a Bulgarian village, like the wonderfully friendly post-punk/shoegaze band Tlen or as they’re actually spelled: ТЛЕН. Or the dreamy Alone at Parties from Cluj-Napoca in Romania, in their soft sound you want to lie down in it like a duvet.
It only becomes critical when, because of the focus on the international sound of the moment, nothing of your own is left. “We sound like the next Phoebe Bridgers! Nirvana! Olivia Rodrigo” is how they promote themselves, as was drummed into them by some manager, in the hope of somehow being noticed. The only problem: Phoebe Bridgers and Olivia Rodrigo already exist. And as is often the case with bands that promote themselves like this, you almost feel like you’re hearing covers of their idols, and the rehearsed rock and pop star poses look like exactly that: poses.
Much cooler were the Bulgarian teenagers who organized their own mini-showcase in a venue every festival evening – without rock star poses, but with the equally bored and excited attitude that one can only wear between the ages of fifteen and twenty, and raw, unadorned songs that sounded primarily like themselves.
The world sounds more diverse than Spotify and AI music would have us believe. And it’s worth listening – if only so that you don’t end up sounding like Friedrich Merz and his fear of everything that seems unknown.