Damir Imamović's Sevdah Takht - Dvojka (2016)

Bosnian singer-songwriter Damir Imamovic is at the forefront of the "New Sevdah" movement. Sevdah is Bosnia's gorgeous and centuries old popular song form, often referred to as the Bosnian "blues." As witnessed by their dynamic performances at European festivals (including last years WOMEX), Damir and his pan-Balkan band Sevdah Takht have become the most important young proponents of sevdah on the international scene. Their approach is fuelled by a fearless commitment to push this passionate music into contemporary, unknown territory. While The Huffington Post recently anointed Damir "the king" of the genre, clearly him and his band are much more revolutionaries than kings. Musicians often struggle to articulate what it is they're playing, where it comes from and where they're going. Damir Imamovic's Sevdah Takht suffer from no such struggle. The new album, the follow-up to 2012's critically acclaimed debut, is a wonder of clear-eyed thinking, crystalline melody and deep reflection. Taking its name from sevda, the Turkish word for love, derived in turn from the Arabic sawda meaning 'black bile' (and hence melancholy), sevdah has been played in the Balkans in one form or another since at least the 15th century. Although the temptation to refer to it as 'Bosnian blues' is perhaps too infrequently resisted, its lyrical and musical preoccupations with love, longing and loss do provide us with a bridge to other European roots traditions, such as fado, whose central concept of saudade is itself related to sawda. Sarajevo born and raised, Imamovic has been steeped in the sounds of sevdah since childhood. Much has been said of his stellar family tradition - both his father and grandfather remain legends of the form. Since those early days, however, when he would ward off boredom during the siege of the city in the early 1990s by learning guitar chords in his basement shelter, Imamovic has completely changed the rules of the game



Tracklist:
1 01. Damir Imamovic - Sarajevo (03:19)
1 02. Damir Imamovic - Tambur (04:25)
1 03. Damir Imamovic - Lijepi Meho (03:28)
1 04. Damir Imamovic - Uzbrdo je mene bole none (03:34)
1 05. Damir Imamovic - Lijepa Zejno (03:24)
1 06. Damir Imamovic - Star se Ćurčić pomamio (02:31)
1 07. Damir Imamovic - Lijepa Mara (05:01)
1 08. Damir Imamovic - Čija li je ono djevojka malena (04:46)
1 09. Damir Imamovic - Sen' gidi sarhoš (02:32)
1 10. Damir Imamovic - Opio se mladi Jusuf-beg (05:03)
1 11. Damir Imamovic - Je li rano (05:15)