#23 Bella Technika: Solid State

Ok, are you sitting down? Are you paying attention? Are your ears perked and your soul open? Is your Mana marvelous and your Qi chunky? Then eyes front, attention please:

I’m going to tell you absolutely everything I know about Bella Technika:

• They’re called ‘Bella Technika Yeah, you might have been wondering if I was going to count that as a thing I knew about them, but as you’ll soon see this is going to be quite slim pickings so I’ve got to take what I can get.
• I’m, like, 90% sure they’re from Belgrade, Serbia Pretty sure. I’m about 99% sure they’re Eastern European, and I found one review that mentioned Belgrade so I was like “yeah”.
• This is their second album Now, I wasn’t sure of this, because when I named their previous album ‘Section’ as the 33rd best album of 2019 I was even more beguiled by these mysterious Serbians than I am now. This year though? No, not getting fooled again, I’ve done my own motherfucking research, sometimes as far as the third or fourth page of Google results, and ‘Section’ was actually an outstanding debut record.

• Both of their albums were produced and mixed in part by Seth Manchester Yeah, here we go again, my weird obsession with Mr Manchester takes me to another fantastic artist that it seems nobody has heard of and borderline don’t exist. Though when I went through the same process with the (almost) equally brilliant Bronzed Chorus, who I also assumed literally not a single person in the world had heard of, some chap named Shamus Johnson commented on the review saying that “They’re gonna be the next Aerosmith, which is a comparison I did not see coming. I wonder what seemingly disparate act that Bella Technika are going to be compared to? Are they the next Wombats? Are they the next Rizzle Kicks? Are they the next Weebles? Honestly, say whatever you want, you mad bastards.
• Bella Technika are Bojan Drobac Bambi, Miki Ristić and Katarina Jovanović Again, I’ve done my research this time, and can confirm this. Listen, I’m not here to pick favourites, but I don’t think it’s possible to dislike a band featuring someone called ‘Bojan Drobac Bambi’.

• That’s a photo of two of them there ☝️ Which two? Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing. There are human limits to the amount of research that can be done. The researcher might get a bit tired, for example, or maybe hungry. Or bored.
• I loved their debut album enough to name it the second best that Seth Manchester has ever produced back in 2019 This was back in 2019, of course, and five years later it’s high time that the albums were ranked again to see how they now shape up. Unfortunately, there are human limits on the amount of Seth Manchester album lists that can be done. The compiler might get a bit tired, for example, or maybe hungry. Or bored. Anyway, considering that ‘Goodness’ by the Hotelier is never getting knocked off the top of that list, coming second is a commendable achievement.
• They have a Wikipedia page, but only in Serbian Which I think we can all agree is pretty badarse. On this page I learned that Група је први концерт одржала 5. јануара 2019.
• This album was released in February 2023 Which, I admit, is a bit off. In my defence, how am I supposed to keep up with this band?! They have 55 Twitter followers and haven’t posted since 2020, they have 63 Instagram followers but I still don’t understand how Instagram works so I don’t know what and when they’ve posted, I couldn’t know! However, luckily I found out about it when going through Seth Manchester’s 2023.
• The Serbs and Slobodan Milosevic were victims of misleading and never corrected propaganda during the Kosovo War 2024 saw the 25th anniversary of the violent and unjustified bombing of Yugoslavia by that war hungry peaceful coalition NATO. Yugoslavia was the last remaining European socialist country, and while it remained a functioning multi-ethnic echo of the Soviet Union, the imperialist powers couldn’t consider the Cold War truly won until it was vanquished. Like Britain did in its African colonies a century before, NATO inflamed tensions between ethnic groups who were previously living together peacefully. So was Slobodan Milosevic and the Serbian army innocent? Absolutely not, but after NATO ignited the flames and then further escalated matters by bombing the fucking place, the country was turned into a killing field, with Kosovar Serbs being massacred by the Kosovo Liberation Army and fragmented ethnicities of the once multinational country all set against each other. However, in the pursuit of neoliberalism, you need good guys and bad guys, so the Serbs were the bad guys and everyone else was fighting for democracy or some shit. Afterwards, NATO again aped Britain by just drawing lines on a map of Yugoslavia and just saying “Ok, you people go in there“. It worked as well in the Balkans as it did in Africa. Yet, in 2022 Russia said the same thing – that they needed to protect an ethnic minority against genocide – when they moved into the Donbass, and suddenly NATO is against that kind of thing! Make up your mind!

• Oh, so it’s alright when Putin does it?? This is such bullshit ‘Whataboutism’! What? I’m saying they’re the same. If I say it’s alright when Putin does it, I’m saying it’s alright when NATO does it. I’m saying they’re both gross!
• Wait… Is this a conversation now? No! I never agreed to that format! Get back to the list of things I know about Bella Technika!
• This album won ‘Regional Album of the Year’ at the 2023 Ambassador Awards That’s something. Think it’s Croatian.
• ‘Solid State’ is an absolutely incredible album Simply some of the best electronic music being made anywhere in 2024… or 2023… or whatever… It hits hard; it knows when to pull back and glide on its own gorgeous melodic soundscapes; it’s infectious as hell without ever sounding over commercialised, and technically the record is impeccably crisp.

That’s it. Fourteen things 🤷

2019 #33

Album title as AI Image

Holy fuck, dude…