Ode Dite

This is a curious release from Croatian guitarist and singer-songwriter Adam Semijalac. He’s deliberately put his guitar away and picked up a banjo and two much more primitive plucked instruments, namely the Serbian/Croatian two-stringed dangubica and Bosnian bugarija lute. He writes repetitive lyrics which, he says, speak of ‘the intergenerational trauma brought about by wars.’ Unfortunately there are no English translations.

Most interesting are haunting and strange tracks like ‘Nije Moje’ (Not Mine), a simple repetitive melody accompanied by these curious plucked instruments plus droning female voices sounding almost like a flexitone in the background. Less interesting is ‘Čile Zime’ (All Winter), a voice and banjo song. He says the album is also about facing the consequences on his voice of cancer surgery. ‘How to go on working as a musician after the instrument with which I worked most of my life has been destroyed?’ This probably accounts for the simple and repetitive vocal lines and why, unfortunately, the album feels more like a process of personal therapy than exceptional music making. The closing title-track, the words of which seem pretty bleak, is surprisingly sparky with ringing strummed strings.