New recording with first single is here!

Posted on August 17, 2016

Hello world, here is the new song from a recording in June in Avidon Audio Labs in NYC, a traditional song from my favorite island of Cres!

We recorded 6 songs in one day and will release the record in the fall, but the first one we will present to you is Oj Vi Mlade. Free download here: http://astridmusic.bandcamp.com/track/oj-vi-mlade
Video: https://youtu.be/6Hns8Gbb754

When I arranged the song, I imagined staying in an old Croatian village by the sea, you can find those everywhere along the coast and on the islands of Croatia. It’s a humid summer afternoon, after an abundant lunch, and you are half sitting half laying down in the shade, yet it’s so hot that you are dwelling on whether you should collect your last atoms of energy and walk those 10 steps through sun to the cool of the sea, or should you not move an inch and keep kind of napping, waiting for the sun to set a bit. Your heart beats slow, in the reggae groove. And then it begins, the nagging.

You hear some old woman criticizing her daughter through the open windows, something you really don’t want to hear but can’t hide from it. This song was sung a long time ago but it’s still valid. It is fascinating that back in the day the women from my island could influence whom each other would or wouldn’t marry. It’s a critique of young women’s vanity – yet by putting it in social context it shows emancipation. I was astonished when I discovered that song because it’s so different from other folk songs, here is the translation:

Oj vi mlade što se ne ženite
Što se tako oholo držite
Jur vidite da vas je odviše
A mladići da ih je premalo
Cezar hoće na vojsku junake
I nikoga ne pušća kraj majke

Oj vi mlade lipo narešene
Pari da ste u Mlecih rojene
Staro vrime nova moda bila
Ni se vako muneda trošila
Staro vrime i žene su bile
Ma su malo ponižnije bile
Suknju kratku one su nosile
Ma bi bile i kopača zele
A sad neće ako ne mornara
Jol mornara joli kapitana
A tužna mladost, kako lih se vara….

Hey you lasses, why aren’t you getting married,
Why are you being so stuck up
Don’t you see that there’s too many of you
And too few lads
Cesar wants heroes in the army
And doesn’t let anyone stay by their mothers

Hey you lasses, nicely dressed up
Seems like you were born in Venice (Mletci – people from Venetian republic)
Old times with new fashion
Money was not spent like this
Old times and the ladies women as well
But they were more humble
They wore short skirts
But they would take a ditch digger
And now they won’t take anyone but a sailor
Either a sailor or a captain
And the sad youth, how it tricks them all…