Somehow I was in Zagreb on April 27, 2024. And I wanted to take this opportunity to meet with and to talk to my friend Horvi (from portal terapija.net) because we had only seen each other twice and I thought this time I will have enough time to spend besides my work. I really enjoyed and was honored to meet again with Horvi and to spend whole evening talking and listening to his experiences in life and music scene as a whole.
Due to professional circumstances, Dražen Đorđević , the owner of the label Splitting Sounds Records and the creative axis of the solo project Dichotomy Engine, found himself in Zagreb on April 27, 2024. It was more than a great opportunity to talk to him because we had only seen each other twice in our life, and this was the third time in a complete long evening meeting.
The two of us met for the first time at that Dark:Scene Hell Machine Fest organized by our friend MiKKa (dreDDup) www.terapija.net/koncert.asp?ID=6537 in Novi Sad on May 30, 2009 in Malecko Club Dvorište, and then only 13 years later at Terapija's 21st birthday www.terapija.net/koncert.asp?ID=31851 in Zagreb's Grof Melin when he surprised me with his presence with his beautiful Ivan. In both cases, we didn't really have particularly long conversations, especially in the first one because I only wrote 3 reviews about him until 2009, but after that, with certain breaks, I delved into his rich creativity, following almost his entire discography, of course as Dichotomy Engine.
Dražen is by no means a freak of a person, as one could conclude from his music or publishing, which he has been consciously pushing for more than a decade, he is extremely polite and quite quiet, moreover, very modest, back then, a real art-alternative that is rare to find in this area. He seems like a very handsome and handsome man (born in 1983), the kind every mother-in-law would want as a son-in-law: smooth and nice, he doesn't curse or spit, he's an anti-alcoholic, he only drinks a few beers on occasion (we're in the evening from almost We drank only 2 beers for 5 hours of socializing (!!!), and besides that, he is educated and culturally eloquent, unlike me, a rude, stupid and rude alternative peasant.
He brought me a special present - a Dichotomy Engine t-shirt in about my weight, which I put on and will wear proudly, and fuck, I came to this date in a Sex Pistols t-shirt, eh, bga, if I had Throbbing Gristle or Coil, I'd rather put them on . The former idols of Einsturzende Neubauten no longer mean anything to me since Blix's outburst when in Močvara, the Unity hall www.terapija.net/koncert.asp?ID=30016 15/04/2008 he declared about the two railway rail carriers that 'Lolek und Bolek ' making clear his Nazi attitude which still reigns in Swabian minds, no matter how much they are valued. He shouldn't have said that, he should have turned Blix's joke on the old jokes about their Bobby und Rudi that ex-Y remembers, but he didn't. You can't belittle us Slavs like that, and 2 thousand fans come to your concert, right? No matter how important a band they are, I'm kidding about Blix, he really is a Nazi who only strives for popularity and the strongest possible alternative mainstream. I imagine that he could finally be Nick Cave himself soon, and reach that most silly rock phase of Pink Floyd, Queen and other prog rock careers with insightful eulogies, viewed and listened to through the eyes of the dulled mainstream.
First of all, I really appreciate what Dražen has done so far, and it is totally different from some, let's say even respected alternatives that he does not live up to, he is a totally free artist and there is absolutely nothing stopping him from making and publishing famous underground songs from Serbia. albums that change space, world and perception. We filmed this interview not far from the Zagreb hotel where he stayed for two days, and then went to Spunk, so here's what was recorded... But first you can watch the attached online interview for Radio Študent from the end of 2021.
In the first part, Dražen mentions his first interview at all, and he gave it to the Slovenian Radio Študent, which we wrote about at the time of the corona virus www.terapija.net/interwju.asp?ID=31173 , and it can still be viewed on the attached YouTube link. On that occasion, Marijana Kuljanac made an online interview in Serbian in November 2021.
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: The latest news at Splitting Sounds Records is the plan to publish a guy from Argentina (Juan Ruiz), as they are looking to calm down the hectic pace of publishing. In addition, many artists now have their own bandcamp pages. So far, I have published about two hundred and something issues in ten years, and I started with Third I because I know Nenad, Peđa and that team...
Two hundred editions is a really impressive figure for a scene that is followed practically all over the world by a handful of people...
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: Well, I don't know how to explain it, I was really hardworking, I was looking for who I could publish, so they started contacting me and I rarely turned anyone down because they were interesting albums. In addition, I started publishing some things on floppy disks. The point was to tap into that nostalgia a bit because, somehow, it becomes exotic. And then you really have to have that floppy disk to play it because it only has 1.4 MB of space. I don't compress it in mp3, but in ogg format, and when it opens, it can be downloaded in a better format because I provide certain links and propaganda. I didn't do vinyls, I have one cassette edition, but it's quite expensive and I saw that I couldn't afford it, even though I got cassettes and a deck (cassette player). I have some of my releases on cassettes that were released by other companies.
In the third part, Dražen returns to the mentioned Argentinian who has many projects under different names, then he talks about some analog releases, bands with classic drums, bass and guitar lineups, and most of the conversation talked about his Dichotomy Engine, for which he himself he does not know for sure how many works he has realized, starting with the first demo material (I counted, there are 24 of them), then collaborations with Niš Figurative Theater , and he also mentioned the great role of the then Dark:Scene Records (since 2011, Crime:Scene Records ). whose forum gathered a considerable number of authors from the entire ex-Yu where they all socialized and contacted each other thanks to the aforementioned MiKKi. And we touched on the football club Hajduk from Kula...
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: When I started playing music, only at the age of 19 because I didn't have a guitar, I got into that story quite late. I listened a little to metal, it's interesting to play... And since I'm from Kula, the football club Hajduk was in the first football league of Serbia a long time ago, it even played in the Intertoto Cup during the time of Dejan Osmanović, a very good scorer (season 1998/1999 with 16 goals, and in the 2000/2001 season he scored 25 goals in 24 games, played only 3 games for the then Yugoslavian national team)...
Those early bands of mine, for example Masque of Betrayal, were gathered around rock and metal, we mixed some melodic death with keyboards and it was interesting. We played on the 202 demo express, then on the Zaječar guitarijada where we passed, it was good, but as time goes on we obviously parted ways, but the demo material remained.
After your first demo as Dichotomy Engine and your early works, you were also in progressive-rock waters...
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: Well, I am. That's what you're left with, as you go into the experimental, there are drums, then you break it down and delve deeper into that story and you realize that it's not just a classical form, but a more minimalist one. And the concept album started to be what makes sense because the noise/drone album making approach itself doesn't say much, it doesn't make sense for me to name songs "001", "002", I listen to albums, and I create them to lead the listener to fall into drone and to guide you, and you have a story in your head. It's like in movies, you don't have to see every scene to understand what happened, it's the same with me.
Let's explain a little about your guitar work, which you developed from initial riffs to experimental drones to thin tones with pedals and other aids...
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: I mean, that whole world of metal and rock started to enter the world of effects, pedals, guitar processors, so you develop and start thinking how long and wide it can develop, you get reverbs, strong distortions, and then they fly... My experience (as a guitarist) was a process that, in my opinion, was somehow the most normal, which interested me . It was nice to research it, it filled me and I found it interesting, of course because I love guitars and everything in that world, so I easily fell into that story, a bit masochistic (ha-ha-ha) with buying pedals, so bows, creating madness, sounds that last longer and longer to sound as monumental as possible...
Mihajlo (MiKKa) told me that you know how to make your own guitar for concerts, which you tear apart and break, then put it back together again...
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: (laughs) That's the second part of the madness with guitars, because through these performances that I've had for years, I was drawn to some things that are aggressive and express anarchy. It was interesting to think about how you could reach a peak or 'something', because I know that I can still make a good signal on processors and some pedals, and the guitar and just breaking the guitar can make a very good effect. And it's not just because of the effect, in such a performance I fall into some of my madness, some of my personal emotions, and I get to the point that that guitar that maybe should last longer, which is experimental, interesting to play - perishes. And so far, 3 or 4 of them have been damaged. Some parts I can collect afterwards, and some I can't, ha-ha-ha!
And, here's the end Dražen, feel free to talk about whatever you want, what you think we haven't touched on in this conversation...
DRAŽEN ĐORĐEVIĆ: I play in another band called Lednik , we play instrumental post-metal, I am also quite involved in that, the band is from Novi Sad. I dedicated a lot to it with the team, we like to play it and it's been my main band for the last 5-6 years, I work when good emotions come to me. That's what I'm pushing, and I'm planning some more releases that came out these days, but I'm waiting for the time to release it, maybe even for some foreign label, if there's any other than the Japanese. And nothing, that's it. I am glad that I came here to Zagreb and talked a little, greetings to everyone.
As I mentioned, after this interview we went to the nearby Spunk and hung out for a full 5 hours when Dražen revealed to me many things from his own life, opening his soul and heart, and of course, we talked about music and everything that goes with it. Through what was not recorded, we also remembered the great Stevan Pivnički from Srbobran (Acid Father, ex-Youth AD), no, there was no gossip, let's be clear, and of course the several times mentioned MiKKa, the scene of Novi Sad, our friends from Niš, and Dražen was interested in everything about me, sending me compliments and admiration every now and then because I reviewed 21 of his rich career of 24 editions. He told me that no one had entered into his work so well and followed him from the beginning, and I told him that this was taught to me by my late uncle Ante Šimunić, a Croatian writer who taught me to write essays and reviews during high school, for which I always received the best marks: the most important thing is to describe the work subjectively, in your own opinion, summarize it objectively and place it on you support an adequate position, why you like it or not, with arguments, and your sole hurts for feedback. The evening at Spunk was great with Dražen, some DJ was playing easy-dance, we even heard the original of "Umbabarum" by Jorge Ben Jor from 1976 before the party itself, the song that Soulfly covered on their famous debut in 1998. You got it, Dražen is a fantastic character, an extremely rich alternative creative who, like the rest of us, no matter how many of us there are, despises government, tyranny and dictatorship, and if you look closely, he had a Black Sabbath T-shirt.
horvi // 02/05/2024
