Debra Richards: Hello, my name is Debra Richards, I'm a music journalist and broadcaster based in the UK. You're listening to the podcast Rebel Spirits, offering a unique insight into the progressive and innovative talents of Polish jazz. Season three interviews musicians that have decided to connect across countries and cultures, initiating unique musical projects. And today on the show, you will hear from Raphael Rogiński and Ana Kravanja, Samo Kutin and Iztok Koren of Širom. There are times when the hand of fate touches us. And this is the case in the meeting of the Slovenian trio Širom. with the Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński. It's a good story they tell here and it seems the recording Raphael Rogiński plays John Coltrane and Langston Hughes's African mystic’s music played a part in it. This collaboration has great meaning. Because it feels that what makes it Rogiński's heartbeat is the same as Širom. There is a reflection of each other in their personal spirit and artistry, and Ana Kravanja, Samo Kutin and Iztok Koren, have a deep connection to ancient music, and they approach the act of playing together in a simple and innocent manner. They live in places where they can be fully immersed in nature. And in the interview, they speak of the importance of family and basic experiences such as eating together. However, what these four musicians create together is far from simplistic. You can sense their love of a really broad range of traditional instruments from banjo and balafon, to kalimba, viola and harps and it puts their playing of them onto another level. There is a moving and mystical aura produced in a unique way as if they are imagining their own myths, but their collaboration never gets locked into the past. It has a freshness, it exists in the here and now. The track they play is a version of I came into this world alone by the American composer and musical inventor Moondog.
Raphael Rogiński: My name is Raphael Rogiński, I'm a guitarist and composer.
Samo Kutin: Hello, I'm Samo Kutin.
Iztok Koren: I’m Iztok Koren.
Ana Kravanja: Hello. I'm Ana Kravanja. We are trio Širom.
Raphael Rogiński: First time I heard about Širom band was when I had some travel around the Balkans. I was very curious about some bands in the Balkans countries. And by complete accident I found that my friend made some ethnomusicological travel and she mentioned about Širom and I wrote to them that I'm close. I was somewhere in Croatia. And maybe we can meet for a coffee. I was very fresh after the John Coltrane recording. And I arrived in Ljubljana. We met and they told me that they also wanted to write to me about some cooperation. So it was amazing that we thought about this together at the same time. So yeah, so this is the story of how we met.
Samo Kutin: I remember that I discovered his music when I heard his album "Raphael Rogiński plays John Coltrane". I was really amazed about his style of playing guitar and his tone. I immediately wish to play with him and then I think in one year or so he wrote the email to Širom. And he invited us to play together on a Moondog Project. So for me, it was like a dream come true. I felt that he has like an old soul and has a lot of knowledge and a lot of interesting stuff about history and Eastern Europe part.
Iztok Koren: One, probably strongest memory from meeting Raphael is we were close to the fire at the place where I live in Slovenia. Later he even played at that festival that we organized with Ana at our farm where we used to live. It was great to have him there as a musician. I think he has this ability to go in talk in contact with people and with places, especially some old places with special energy.
Ana Kravanja: I remember the home of Raphael and his wife that was full of books and statues, objects from traveling and things from different times of history and listening to stories that they were telling from the past.
Raphael Rogiński: Širom band is very special to me. First of all, Slovenia is very special with people, you know, their heritage, and everything is very complicated compared to the size of the country, for example, you know, they have a lot of landscapes. So, in Širom, you have a meeting of three landscapes for me, you know, each person has some heritage from a different region. Iztok, who plays banjo drums. He's from Prekmurje, which is a flat landscape close to the Hungarian border. And I think he has something like space, you know, from the plain landscape. Ana is a river person. You know, she's from a region where you can find a lot of rivers, forest. And Samo is a very mountain person. And this is amazing, you know, you can hear this in Širom. What for me is important, this mix of root culture mixed with something contemporary, which is the final result is that you have some kind of soundtrack for contemporary people.
Samo Kutin: I think it was the first time in 2018. We're on the Moondog project. We had rehearsals in Slovenia and then also in Cracow. Now, after some years, when I listen again to this material from rehearsals, I thought, wow, what beautiful music, good music and it's so much more there.
Iztok Koren: As I remember, it's almost impossible to develop things with Raphael in a normal way because even if we rehearsed things he always played it completely differently. Yeah, it was a very special collaboration.
Samo Kutin: With Moondog for me, it was very special. Also, he didn't choose only Moondog composition, but also some other songs, which are some kind of connected to Moondog story or going to feelings or to some historical stuff.
Iztok Koren: There was also Natalia Przybysz in the project as a singer when I checked backgrounds later, so her background, Raphael's background, our background it was like putting three very different words together and then something very strange came out but nice.
Raphael Rogiński: They are alchemists because they built for themselves, instruments. And people around the band also built instruments for them. Amazing guy Borat living in a tent from a couple of years in the mountains. He built amazing marimbas for them, balaphones, and they construct some amazing instruments and even when they use some regular instruments they play differently than people from around the world some time ago. Samo and Ana bring some instruments from Iran and I was curious how they use them, you know, and for the end you know why so that they play for example, on the instrument that people play with both see play fingers you know. So, so, this is also amazing that they put some new life for her alto signs.
As a musician you know, and especially compared to Širom and other people who are in met and I admire or, you know, it's this that you are between cultures, you know, even when you are deep in some culture as your heritage you should be someone between I think, especially now when when you have to find your tribe of musicians who play music like this, what I said this will want to create this contemporary soundtrack, the map of relations are bigger, you know, you have to find these people and keep connections, but the general life of musician in a mission like that is some kind of nomad life and sometimes you are also lonely, you know, you have to feel this loneliness and it's very important part, which is sometimes very heavy in this mission. In the past in Poland it was some force in a culture that you have to choose your own music, you know, that you have to be a blues player or a blues player, metal, I don't know, but I didn't want to decide. When I was like 25, maybe be 27 I find myself you know, in some kind of mix, you know, I decided to be without this choice. With Širom is something like that. When we start to play I remember, there was very nice but when we sit together around a table, we felt that we visit ourselves as a family and this was much more important to feel the same mission in music. We are meeting they're cooking together, you know, some soup and at the end, you know the rest of these, this kind of colours, colours of music. My name is Raphael Rogiński and you are listening to ‘I came into this world alone’ by Moondog.
Debra Richards: This episode of Rebel Spirits was hosted by Debra Richards and produced by Magdalena Stępień, Monika Proba and Wojciech Oleksiak. The podcast was brought to you by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. If you'd like to listen to more music from today's featured artist, please see the show notes for this episode, or go to culture.pl/rebelspirits. Please do subscribe to Rebel Spirits wherever you get your podcasts and we'd be happy for you to share it. It's been such a pleasure and I look forward to being with you again.