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Recorded in Skopje in 1983 and originally released on the state-owned PGP-RTB in 1984, Bastion is the only remaining document of the short but extremely sweet collaboration between singer-actress Ana Kostovska, composer and musician Kiril Džajkovski, bassist Ljubomir Stojsavljević and film director Milcho Manchevski. One of the first electronic bands in the Republic of Macedonia – hailed by the press as “Macedonian electropop sensation” – the four young artists crafted a quick-footed jewel of eclectic, expert synth-wave, genre-curious yet grounded in a bright, glamorous pop sensibility.
Bastion moves between crazed stadium bubblegum and a serious, seductive solemnity: whirlwinds of womanly wave such as “Hollywood” and “Mister Kompleks” open onto the dark electronic landscapes of “Deca Sunca” and “Mesec u Šolji”, while “Molitva” lifts the record into a soulful, torch-lit, and typically Macedonian mysticism. Across the record, Džajkovski’s luscious, sparkling synths and Stojsavljević’s dexterous bass tease and sustain Kostovska’s vocals as she croons, chants and coos her way in and out of one of the freshest, most surprising records to have ever come out of Eastern Europe.

ACC Records is a new imprint born out of Flora Pitrolo’s radio show A Colder Consciousness, broadcasting since 2011 on Resonance FM (London) and Kanal 103 (Skopje). Mirroring the show’s archival appetite for the more opaque facets of the electronic 1980s, the label’s future releases include previously unheard French minimal synth for film, romantic Italian industrial, and some bleakly club-oriented experimental electronic music from contemporary London.