The Macedonian electronic music scene is not huge at all. It’s more or less made of friends and acquaintances, situated in Skopje, the capital city, but also in some other cities in the country. For more than 10 years there is one radio station in Skopje called Kanal 103, which is free-speech music radio with a general more-music-less-talking concept and dedicated to promoting new and interesting music. This radio was and still is a great source for finding out about great music like Bola, To Rococo Rot, Biosphere, Coti, Autechre, Coil, Laika, Akufen, Luomo, EU and lots of others… 
But talking about the general musical situation here, it seems that there is a lack of curiosity among the people. Almost everyone here who’s into electronic music knows the big bands like Orbital, Orb, FSOL, Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Underworld and of course the infamous Warp Records. But not too many people are curious to find out more… And there’s, of course, much more music than that. Lately we’re trying to present much more music on the radio and in some magazines, playing and writing about lots of different artists and labels that are well established in the world but also unknown here, like Mille Plateaux, Mego and Raster Noton, and also about many less or only locally known artists and labels like Thinner/Autoplate, Andrey Kiritchenko (Ukraine), Onethema (UK), Expanding Records (UK), Sawako (Japan), Josh Russell and Bremsstrahlung Recordings (USA), Fylkingen Records (Sweden), Couchblip! (Australia) to name a few.
Talking about contemporary electronic musicians from Macedonia, I must say that some of them are heavily influenced by the IDM type of sound, which, as it’s well known, was most popular in the mid-90’s, with artists like Autechre, Boards of Canada and Bola. That kind of music mutated into a more melodic music today and really spread all around the world. You can find good post-IDM music almost everywhere, even in Macedonia. Recently I found out about 19 year old Marijan Petkov who makes music as Flim (can you guess where the name comes from?) and lives in a city called Veles. Some of his songs are fantastic electronic tunes that could easily be a part of some amazing compilations like Neo Ouija’s Annexe: Cottage Industries 2 or Other Animals compilation released on Couchblip!. One of the greatest surprises from the Macedonian music scene in 2002 for me was the album Epilogue from PC aka Petar Sokoleski. Most of the songs on that album are very light, easy listening and extremely simple IDM-inspired music, sometimes with a chilled-out drum’n’bass rhythm. Although it’s maybe less original and authenticable compared to Flim, PC’s music is still a nice and refreshing incarnation of this scene and is more on the melodic side of the platter. Another artist who falls into this post-IDM post-Wwarp field is Oliver Dimitrov. Oliver is one of the most respected Macedonian producers who now works much more on the production of other people’s music, instead of making his own. His tunes are a breed of intelligent ambience, similar to most of the music you can find at Skylab Observatory MP3 label including Kunstner5, Inclination, Satellite Grooves, Nick Cramer, Orfeus, and Imtech.
Bei the Fish is an educated musician from Skopje, his name is Ognen and his electronic music sounds like it’s actually played by a band. It’s a kind of jazzy influenced lounge electronica, if I can call it that way. Some Bei the Fish songs are really fantastic, like “Beneath your Pillow,” which is a short melodic gem. It seems that his music is very much inspired by the 90’s indie scene.
Not too many people here are involved into really experimental electronic music, but I think Toni Dimitrov from Acidfake Recordings covers all those fields. From minimal microsound electronics, ambient and sinewaves to glitch and harsh noise. 2002 and the beginning of 2003 is a nice period for Toni, with lots of tracks on many different compilations all around the world. Also an album that should be released on a Danish label called Synthetic Waste, an MP3-ep release on the respected MP3 label Stasisfield, where you can find other releases from Phluidbox, John Kannenberg, ok.suitcase, Sawako, Formatt, Josh Russell and many others. Toni also remixed one track from Andrey Kiritchenko’s amazing album 00.00 (A Suite of the Midnight). Both the original and the remix album are released on the Autoplate MP3 label.
There are also some people here that produce fine tech-house dance music. Our friends from the PMG Collective are DJ’s who are one of the most responsible people for the promotion of all kinds of electronic music here. They (Mirko, Darko, Nino, Sinisha…) have played been DJ’s for about 10 years and continually bring respected tech-house DJ-guests from abroad. PMG Collective is also very much important because they compiled the first 2 compilations with Macedonian electronic music called Macidonia 1999 and 2000. These 2 CD’s brought together lots of amusing artists, not all of them are equally good, but I’d mention: Robotek, Novogradska, Rentgen Panoramik, Ogie, and Kiril.
When some sophisticated kind of electro tech-house music is concerned, we got Goran Atanasovski aka Robotek. What I’ve heard from Robotek sounds really classy and well done, it’s nice stylish tech-house mixed with some electro atmosphere, dance-friendly but also calmed down sometimes and simply fine. Soon we are expecting the first split vinyl release from PMG/Robotek that will be released on PMG Recordings.
I’d like to mention one band that’s not too active lately, but was very much influential in the contemporary music scene here a few years ago. They are called Anastasia and their sound is more epic because they use Macedonian traditional instruments mixed with digital soundscapes. Anastasija are Zoran Spasovski, Zlatko Origjanski and Goran Trajkoski, and they have released few singles and albums. The most recent release from Anastasija is an album called Nocturnal. It’s an experimental but cohesive form of music that has influences from artists like FSOL and Biosphere. Sounds very much original, powerful and peaceful at the same time. Anastasia have released one of the longest living electronic music here. More info about them can be found on their website at www.anastasia.com.mk
There are also some drum’n’bass producers and DJ’s who are stuck in the dum’n’bass rhythm and don’t want to expand much further. However, here we have one really interesting and worth mentioning hip-hop band called SAF. Their album Safism was released on both CD and vinyl. SAF continue to produce well crafted, imaginative, funny, tricky and amazing songs. Check the SAF site at www.saf.com.mk
I’ve sure missed many other artists and bands, because lately there are many artists coming from different cities, but I’m sure I’ll get to those in due time. One of the biggest disadvantages of the Macedonian electronic scene is that the artists don’t play their music live that much. I hope they’ll start to do that more often in future. If you’re interested, you can find more info about many Macedonian artists and DJ’s at www.skopjeclubbing.com.mk.
