Double concert - DJ - book release - vinyl release
In cooperation with Piranha Records, Kesselhaus Kulturbrauerei presents an evening at the intersection of concert, club night and cultural diagnosis of the times on Sunday, March 22. Live performances and DJ sets will trace the history of Balkan music - one of the most influential transnational music movements of recent decades.
Guča Meets Wacken, the world's first Balkan metal band, the Serbian Dejan Lazarević Orkestra, multiple winner of the Golden Trumpet at the Guča Festival, and Robert Šoko, founder of the BalkanBeats sound, will be performing a DJ set. The program will be complemented by the international book premiere of Balkan Beats - An Oral History, presented by the author duo Robert Šoko and Robert Rigney.
Guča Meets Wacken
Guča is a sleepy village in Serbia. Wacken is a sleepy village between Hamburg and the North Sea coast - about which no explanation is needed. Heavy metal rules in Wacken. In Guča, hundreds of thousands of people party every year at the biggest trumpet festival in the world - between dancing, rakija and canned beer, lost in a thunderstorm of brass. Two musical worlds that had never met before.
In the summer of 2015, bassist Manne Pokrandt stood in front of the main stage in the Guča stadium and couldn't believe his eyes and ears: stage diving, pogoing, headbanging in front of the stage - just like at a metal festival. On stage, however, no rock guitars, no drum set, but horns. Not like in a big band, but with raw, unleashed power, as if the horns had to bend straight while playing. At that moment, the idea was in the air: these two worlds must be brought together.
Ten years later, the idea became reality: Guča Meets Wacken took to the main stage of the Guča Festival. After the gig, fans said that this band had revolutionized the legendary festival. On the same evening, a Serbian brass band from Požega also played there, which was invited by the Berliners to make a return visit to Germany to the Kesselhaus at the Kulturbrauerei.
Dejan Lazarević Orkestra
Dejan Lazarević is a trumpeter from Požega, Serbia.
in 2003, he won the Golden Trumpet and the Audience Award at the trumpet festival in Guča. In the following years he received further awards, including First Trumpet (2005), Golden Trumpet (2007) and in 2008 again the Golden Trumpet by the audience and additionally the First Trumpet, awarded by the expert jury. This made Lazarević the first trumpeter in Guča's history to win two prizes in one year, and in the same year he was named "Master of the Trumpet".
He also won the Balkan Brass Orchestra Competition in Zaječar with his orchestra and was crowned King of the Balkan Trumpet. further awards followed in 2011, including "Best Orchestra of the Parliament" and "The Best Orchestra in the World".
His interpretation of Serbian national music and his characteristic playing style have also made the Dejan Lazarević Orkestra internationally renowned, with performances in Italy, France, Russia, Belgium, Austria and Germany, among others.
Record release concert
For Guča Meets Wacken, the evening is also the record release concert for the first vinyl "Here Comes The Horny Future". The song of the same name - a declaration of love to the village of Guča, which becomes a place of absolute ecstasy once a year - also convinced the organizers in Serbia to dare the experiment and present a metal band for the first time to an audience that has been listening to brass band music for 64 years.
DJ Robert Soko / Robert Rigney "Balkan Beats - An Oral History"
The evening will be opened and framed by the legendary DJ Robert Soko, who is known internationally as BalkanBeats. He will be celebrating the publication of his book "Balkan Beats - An Oral History" with co-author Robert Rigney.
What began in the late 90s with bands such as Fanfare Ciocârlia quickly developed into a global phenomenon. Together with artists such as Gogol Bordello, Goran Bregović and Shantel, the pioneers of the Balkan sound took the music from the backyards of south-eastern Europe to the world's major stages. Brewed in Berlin underground clubs, free from the constraints of the music industry, BalkanBeats became the soundtrack of a generation - raw, honest, danceable.
Release
Vinyl "Here Comes The Horny Future" and book "Balkan Beats - An Oral History"