Experimental Electronics in the Then-Yu Scene

Discussing the trailblazers of the underground music scene in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia was the name of a union of states which existed in the Balkans throughout most of the 20th century. Nowadays it’s mostly remembered as either one of two things or both: on one hand, it used to be (and most of its former member states still kind of are) a cheaper summer holiday destination when compared to neighbouring Italy and Greece. On the other, it’s also remembered due to the gruesome events that followed its collapse: the country started to crumble after the Breakup of Yugoslavia in 1992 and was officially disbanded in the early 2000s after a string of declarations of independence and civil wars that caused the entire region to undergo a lengthy period of deep-rooted crisis between the early 80s and the turn of the new millennium. It’s safe to say that these were some of the bloodiest and most violent conflicts that any European country has had to go through since WW2. Those who were alive during the 1990s may remember a few things about the Siege of Sarajevo, an all-out assault on the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina which spanned from 1992 to 1996 and is generally considered to be the peak of the region’s geopolitical, cultural and military crisis.

However, while the political state of the country might have been mostly in shambles, the Yugoslav underground was able to thrive through the hardships (or most of them really) and saw a lot of independent artists emerge from its shadows, especially during the 80s. This is why I thought I’d compile a short list of Yugoslav underground artists that I find interesting.

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Mario Marzidovšek & the MML

Mario Marzidovšek during a live performance, date unknown

Every scene has its pioneers and trailblazers upon whose work its legacy is built, and that’s exactly what Mario Marzidovšek (read ‘Marzidovshek’) was for the Yugoslav underground in the 1980s: one of the originators of industrial music in the country and one of the best kept secrets in Yugoslav music as a whole. Mario was a lone wanderer in many ways, far ahead of everybody else at the time. He was a key figure of the local underground movement in Maribor, Slovenia, which encompassed only a fraction of his activity within the “then-Yu” alt scene and beyond, he was very well connected within the national and international tape trading and mail art networks, with contacts ranging from Western Europe (the Eastern Bloc was still a thing at the time) to the United States, and in many ways he also set the standards for his own art and that of others around him. He was influential, just not on a large scale.

As an artist he was extremely prolific and the endless array of tapes that he left behind, released through his own DIY label called MML (short for Marzidovšek Minimal Laboratorium) between 1984 and 1987, stand as a testimony of his productivity. He dubbed his style “minimal music” as a way to describe his ultimate goal: going for maximum impact with minimal technical means. According to people who were there when he was pioneering left-field musical ideas in 1980s Slovenia, he never even owned an actual synthesizer! His professional background allowed him to develop his own way of creating music by relying on a combination of home electronics and modulators, microphones, and DIY wiring techniques: he would record the sounds coming from nature and the chemical plant he used to work at to produce loops and then he’d work on the individual recordings themselves, altering them as he saw fit at the moment. This resulted in a body of work which is incredibly varied, ranging from full-fledged industrial music as seen on tapes such as Alter Minimal 001 from 1984 or the Steyer compilation from 1985 to more melody-driven efforts such as his collaboration track with David Prescott titled Union Trash.

Unfortunately, Mr. Marzidovšek passed away in 2011 after the decades of inactivity that followed his move to The Netherlands and then Germany towards the end of the 1980s. His contacts with the local scene gradually fell silent and nobody knew his whereabouts. He moved back to Slovenia in 1991 and settled in his hometown of Poljčane, where he spent the last years of his life living a somewhat solitary life in precarious conditions. Nevertheless, his cult status within the underground never crumbled: the same year he died also saw the release of his first LP ever, called Ultimativ, while another one called Brutal Alter Minimal would see the light of day in 2021 via Dead Mind Records. Give the man’s legacy a chance, I promise you won’t regret it. There’s a reason why a portion of the Yugoslav underground was moulded around him and his work.

Mario Marzidovšek and Dušan Hedl (ex-C.Z.D.) at Mario’s place, Feburary 2010

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Demolition Group

As the golden years of Mario Marzidovšek were gradually coming to an end, another entity was slowly establishing itself in Slovenia. In 1983 a band called Gast'r'bajtr's was founded and went on to release a couple of LPs on which they could showcase their chops playing a weird mix of Post Punk and Funk. However, things started to change pretty rapidly around 1985: the band changed their name to Demolition Group, and with that the focus of their music changed as well: a weird mix of flanger-heavy guitars and groovy bass sections, sourced from the band’s Punk roots, and EBM would be the main subject of a handful of tapes that they would release via Opus Manuum, the band members’ own tape label, in 1986.

The tape they’re mostly known for is called “Mizerika” and it’s the only one out of all of them which would go somewhat beyond the demo stage thanks to a vinyl rerelease in 1988. On top of that, as it was the case with Pauk’s debut, Demolition Group prime release to date has been subjected to massive traffic due to one of its tracks, titled “You Better Stay Alive”, getting recommended to loads of people on YouTube for a while, even though they only heard a sped up version. What we’re presented with is a largely loop-based electronic instrumentals with layers of distorted, flanger-heavy guitar freestyles thrown into the mix. The same sort of style is reiterated, although in a much rawer sound quality, on another demo called “Vox Clamantis”. If you’re into weird, yet somewhat still groovy DIY Electro music, this band might just be for you.

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Pauk

It’s safe to say that the legacy of the Yugoslav underground music movement is built upon the work of bands that were part of the scene between the end of the 1970s and the the end of the 1980s. This timespan saw the rise of the Yugoslav Punk and New Wave scene and has been documented by Igor Mirković in his 2003 documentary titled Sretno Dijete (Happy Child), where he goes through the heydays of the alt scene in the capital of SR Croatia with a decidedly nostalgic undertone. Besides a handful of bands that would go on to be somewhat successful in the years to come (like the band who wrote the song after which Mirković would name his documentary) , most of them would fall into obscurity and would only receive some form of recognition after YouTube became a thing. Pauk is one of those bands.

They formed in 1978 in a Bosnian towan called Zavidovići (I wish I had any idea how you’re supposed to pronounce that mess), which is at about an hour and half car ride north of Sarajevo, probably even more considering the kind of vehicles drove back then. Taken at face value, they’re one of a thousand obscure bands that you’ll eventually come across while scouring the Yu underground. They released one single in 1981, and their only album came out a couple of years after that. That is it. Pauk was seemingly put to sleep in 1984 and its members went down their own individual paths. You wouldn’t expect this kind of band to be one of many people’s gateways into underground Yu music now though, wouldn’t you? Of course, as it’s the case with most music trends nowadays, it’s always one out of two platforms which is ultimately responsible for giving the chance to such obscure bands to experience these sorts of instant surges in popularity: TikTok and YouTube. In this case we can thank the latter, the title track off of Pauk’s debut got seemingly caught up into the platform’s recommendation algorithm and now clocks in at over 1,7 million views as of late September 2023. It’s safe to say it’s more than deserved, and although the performance on the whole album is somewhat sloppy at times, it’s still very good example of what can you do if you manage to properly balance all your influences in the music that you make: you’ll find hints of post punk, followed by distinctively raw, yet somewhat tranquillising synth sections and hypnotic folk-inspired group vocals. This band is not to be overlooked.

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Kleopatra

If you thought Pauk and Mario Marzidovšek were obscure enough, then this band might be as close to an archaeological discovery as we can get. Kleopatra was a Skopje-based Darkwave band which was active between the late 80s and the early 90s and never released any record of their own, at least as far as I know. My guess is they probably never had the chance to even think about that, things started to really go downhill over there in the early 90s and you’ll see why I believe this in a short while. While there’s no album or demo released under the Kleopatra moniker, take part on a handful of compilations though, one of which I find to be particularly iconic: it came out as a collection of live recordings captured during the last edition of the Festival Omladina, held between 1961 and 1990 in Subotica, Serbia. The entire operation would then come to a halt due to war breaking out. The track they’re introduced with, called “Nemirna”, is a perfect example of a band showcasing a sound of their own with a distinct amount of energy and drive behind it. Give it a chance if you want to.

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