“Vodu Brala,” the first single from the album ‘Dens’ (due out 10 November on Glitterbeat Records), gives a huge nod to late night dance floors, a very unlikely transformation given the song’s source material.
Producer Vladimir Lenhart explains: “This song – which in translation means ‘(She was) Fetching Water‘ – is a folk tune from the Slovak minority population living in Vojvodina, northern Serbia. I first heard this song on a discarded tape, during the time when local radio stations were digitizing and old analogue equipment was being made redundant. The late Mária Šagová from Stara Pazova performed the song without any musical accompaniment during an interview for a radio station. At first, this recording was interesting to me for sampling, then later I presented it to Tijana Stanković as potential material for our duet. The entire idea for the album ‘Dens’ was for live female vocals to replace samples. As an ethnomusicologist, Tijana recognized the authenticity of this archaic folk song, and as an artist, she breathed new life into it. Later on, I found archival footage of Mária from TV Novi Sad from the 1970s and as a homage to her I have edited some of it into the video.”