This week, Balkan Express takes a ride with Lufthansa. And no, not the German airline which everyone loves to hate but rather a North Macedonian band of the same name. Because apparently in some parts of the world the said German airline has not completely lost it reputation. Or something.
Lufthansa
Lufthansa have been around only a couple of years. Spawned in 2020, during the pandemic, the band identifies as post-punk psychedelic rock outfit that never errs on the side of caution.
Contrary to your flight to München, the North Macedonian Lufthansa has a crew of six: Rade Bikovski on bass guitar, Viktor Stojanovski on drums while Luka Jovanovski and Andrej Dimovski do guitars and vocals. Ivo Nikolovski and Martin Dzorlev also moonlight as guitars and vocalists, but are also proficient in synth and sax, respectively.
Lufthansa got together in 2020 and the moment the pandemic abated somewhat, they started releasing their material, almost instantly becoming one of the hottest musical attraction in North Macedonia.
In fact, Demo Tape 1 Lufhansa’s first album was released in April 2021 and in July that same year they released Demo Tape 2, as if to reiterate that they’ve got things to say.
If you ask their PR person, they will happily tell you, that Lufhansa have an experimental and aggressive spirit. They counteract the genre determinations, one-dimensionality, and conformism of manufactured monotonous music by combining loudness, anger, love, and aggression. If you ask their PR person, that is.
In 2022, Lufthansa released their third album. Titled Davor, it casts a wide net in terms of influences on Lufthansa’s music. On average, the band is 22 years of age but have an attitude and experience of a much older and more experienced band.
And that’s all the time we have for today. Check out Lufthansa on YouTube, Bandcamp and wherever you get your music from and Balkan Express will be back in two weeks’ time.
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Balkan Express brings you the latest and/or the greatest in music from the Balkans. On air every Tuesday at 11am on Ara City Radio, it is hosted by Aljaž aka @pengovsky who once did the world a solid and vowed never to sing again in public. Which is how he ended up doing radio.