A Reset
Branko Mataja - Kad Ja Podoh Na Bembasu (1974 / Folk)
Hello internet pals of music. Today we’re trying to jumpstart this old jalopy with an unpublished post about a Croatian mysterioso guitarist.
Publisher’s note: This was written immediately after Cormac McCarthy’s passing last July.
The wind howled in off the coast. It was whipping through the trees, insistent but not resentful.
Cormac McCarthy died. Branko Mataja was already on the turntable, still there from the other night. But it seemed fitting so I played it all the way through. Something about men of a certain generation. Maybe the way Branko Mataja’s music took years to find a larger home, maybe the way Cormac McCarthy insisted, both these men seemed nothing if but themselves in every bit of what they left us.
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I really suggest the whole album to truly understand this strange and beautiful album. And read more about Branko Mataja—his story is amazing, as so many of the stories behind really great lost records can be. I haven’t read enough Cormac McCarthy, either, but I’m a lurch when it comes to reading fiction so maybe I’ll add to that short list one day.
About the song: from a Balkan music site I did learn that the song, of lost love, and possibly dates back to late 1800s Bosnia.
Not like much else you’ll probably hear today.
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