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Solunsky Front: Mali Svet 12” (2014, Ne! Records)
When Scarecrow played a gig at the legendary MKNZ club in Serbia, the first person we met was our host and promoter, Simon. We immediately hit it off, as we could tell right away Simon loves punk and is a giant nerd about it just like everyone in Scarecrow is. The show that night was great. Simon took amazing care of us, fed us great food, gave us way too much booze, and showed us a great time, but I want to focus on here is Simon’s distro.
Simon had a few distro boxes on a table at the club, and I flipped through them, as one does. I flip through a lot of distros, and I could tell right away that this was a very good one. Simon had a lot of the same releases we stock at Sorry State, and you could tell this was the kind of distro where everything that was there only got its space because Simon cared about it and wanted other people to hear it. I already owned about 75% of the records in his distro, so I could tell Simon’s tastes were aligned with mine.
About 1/3 of Simon’s distro was dedicated to music from former Yugoslavia, mostly reissues from 80s bands. I knew a few of them like Quod Massacre, Proces, and Tozibabe, but most of the artists I either knew only by name or not at all. Realizing I was in the company of a knowledgeable person with excellent taste in music, I asked Simon what he would recommend from the Yugoslavian section. I grabbed a few records (and maybe I’ll write about the others later), but the one I’m writing about today is this compilation of two recording sessions (and a few live tracks) from 80s Belgrade hardcore band Solunski Front.
Solunski Front never managed a vinyl release during their original 1981-1985 run, only appearing on a handful of cassette compilations. In 1993, a 7” EP came out featuring four tracks the band recorded in 1984, but it was limited to only 200 copies and quickly became impossible to find. The lack of released material has nothing to do with the quality of Solunski Front’s music, and (presumably) everything to do with the social, political, and economic conditions in 80s Yugoslavia. Much like the great, under-documented bands from Poland, Solunski Front continued to hone their craft despite their lack of access to the bigger and more commercial punk networks in the west.
The 1984 session captured on the a-side of this LP is incredible. According to the interview in this record’s insert, Solunski Front never considered themselves a hardcore band. They were inspired by early punk like the Ramones, the Damned, UK Subs, the Clash, and Dead Kennedys. Of those bands’ records, Solunski Front’s 1984 tracks remind me the most of Dead Kennedys’ Plastic Surgery Disasters album. Like that record, Solunski Front takes catchy, classic-sounding punk songs, adds intense musical chops that only come from years of playing, and blasts it out with a hardcore-informed sense of power and concision. Dezerter is another good reference point, particularly in the way the songs are dense with musical detail, meticulously arranged, yet that core of a memorable, anthemic punk track still shines through. The tracks on the b-side of this album, recorded a year earlier, are rougher and more primal, but still showcase Solunski Front’s immense talent.
So, thank you to Simon for sharing his knowledge and passion for punk. Thanks to Ne! Records for getting this brilliant document to a wider audience. And thanks to records for allowing me to have this incredible souvenir from Serbia that will make me think of our amazing night at MKNZ every time I play it.