Dum Dum (studio album) by Ekatarina Velika

This is an album, made in a year when things in Yugoslavia reached the critical point. The country started falling apart, wars broke out, and this influenced the album's sound greatly. Even though one of the band's most important members, the bass player Bojan Pečar (also an influence on some of the lyrics and somber atmosphere), left the band at the time, the album is very much bass-driven. With the bass being played by two people now, the strong basslines create an incredibly dark and kind of sinister atmosphere. Because of that, this was the EKV album I had most trouble getting into, but I have to say that it is also the reason I love it so much now. Compared to their last album (2 years later), which builds the songs more on a contrast between mostly dark and depressing lyrics and a bit lighter, occasionaly almost upbeat atmosphere (I would say sort of "accepting" the horrors happening in the country as the everyday occurence), there's nothing in Dum Dum that would offer a glimpse of hope. It's a dark, emotional, depressing album, that I feel really captured what was happening in the area at the time.

Track picks: Siguran, Bledo (now this is just one of the most beautiful songs of all time)