Basamak

Fish in Oil, a Serbian jazz rabbit hole, and the album that made it all worthwhile

A guide for living with jazz for normal, busy adults who want a richer life. One song, one album, and the stories in between. Curated dispatches from the front row of the jazz scene—without pretension—to enable your musical discovery.

---

🎧 One Song: Fish in Oil — Znam za jadac

Relentless, pulsating bass and rhythm through which the guitar and sax do their thing. The great thing about video is seeing guitarist Bratislav Radovanović at work before saxophonist Dušan Petrović’s fiery solo.

---

✍️ The Story

It’s hard to get outside of one’s bubble in life, and the same goes for jazz. In an intentional effort to do so I poked about the Polish jazz scene this past fall. Since then, I’ve been spying on the Eastern European jazz scene through Eurojazzist — a Substack written by Nikola Marković, a Serbian jazz journalist following his country’s scene for decades. A few weeks ago he published a list of essential contemporary Serbian jazz records. I listened to some of each of them, more to ones that started to click. I had a different favorite until I got to Fish in Oil.

Basamak opens with a noisy 2:38 minute track. I turned it off the first time. And the second. Eventually I skipped track 1 and found the album on the other side of it.

Later, when I went back and listened to that opening track properly, I had a theory. In Jewish tradition, a rabbi is supposed to turn away someone who wants to convert three times — to make sure they really mean it. On the fourth approach: okay, let's do this. Maybe that's what track 1 is doing. Turning away the casual listeners. Letting the committed ones through.

The rest of the album is gold.

---

💿 One Album: Fish in Oil — Basamak (2022)

Skip track 1 if you need to. Come back to it later or not.

Links: You Tube, Apple Music

The lineup on Basamak included musicians from diverse backgrounds — saxophonist Dušan Petrović, double bassist and electric bassist Branislav Radojković, drummer Tom Fedja Franklin, percussionist Veljko Nikolić Papa Nik, and a guest appearance on track 7 from Marc Ribot. Basamak turned out to be the final album with this lineup. Papa Nik passed away after it was recorded. Dušan Petrović departed. The band continued but in a different form. This album is a farewell that didn’t know it was a farewell.

The album rocks. At times there are moments where you catch a glimpse of something that feels like Black Sabbath — heavy, instrumental, the tension of waiting for vocals that never arrive. And then the music zags somewhere else entirely.

The bass thumps and grooves throughout and I’ll confess something: I’m a little in love with the bass on this album. I don’t think it’s their showcase instrument (Branislav Radojković seems to be). That’s how good it is.

Znam za jadac — track 4, your “One Song” — is the purest distillation of what this band does. Relentless rhythm underneath, guitar and sax doing their thing on top. You don’t need to understand the title. Just let it run.

Then there’s Blondie — track 7, the Marc Ribot collaboration. It zags completely. A dark lullaby, cinematic and quiet, that sounds to me like it could be about love lost, or a boat ride, or hiding from something lurking and doing a slow dance with your predator. Ribot’s guitar fits as naturally as if he’d always been in the room.

And the closing track — the album ends like a European spaghetti western. Wide open, dusty, unhurried. A completely different register from where the album began.

---

🎷 Scene Notes

• I had coffee recently with Alex Leister from Chaotic Good Jazz — a Substack I follow and recommend. We talked about a potential collaboration: a guest column, or maybe Alex picks the One Song and One Album and I write about it. Watch this space.

• If you, dear reader, could suggest one album for me and my listeners to discover, what would it be? Drop it in the comments or DM me.

• Give the Drummer Some, this Friday, June 5 from 7:00 – 9:00pm at MonoSpace, a high fidelity listening gallery. This deep dive with Meg Samples (KMHD DJ and interim GM), is an exploration tracing drummers and recordings that continue to resonate across time.

  

  Meg Samples and I at KMHD, Portland’s Jazz Radio

---

🎵 Background Listening

• I want to give Nikola Marković his due — the full list on the Serbian scene is worth your time. The full list is here. Start there and follow your ears.

• Jasna Jovićević Sextet — Flow Vertical (2018). Still getting to know this one. What I can tell you: she deploys the right instrument at the right moment rather than having everyone play at once and trade solos. There’s an underlying power and narrative I can feel without fully understanding. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.

• I can be a sucker for cosmic sounding albums. Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (2017) a Hampshire and Foat’s effort tickled that fancy.

---

Outro

Last week I got some feedback about how accurate and inaccurate I was about Geordie Jazz and The Knats. The cultural barriers are just larger than I was really thinking. I won’t pretend to know or get what it’s like to be in the Serbian jazz scene and I’m digging Fish in Oil. If you enjoyed Basamak, check out their 2016 double disk 3 Kljuca.

If I was picking one track for you it would be Disc 2, Track 2 Kod Pacepanih Gaca…