SARLO AKROBATA

New wave/post-punk period (late70s/early 80s) has to be the most creative time in the history of Yugoslavian music - both quality and quantity wise. Of course, quantity means there was a lot (and I mean a lot) of crap that popped up under the new wave banner, but Bassta! Pex won’t get too deeply into that - let’s talk about good things. Like Sarlo Akrobata.

Sarlo Akrobata (Loosely translates as Charles the Acrobat) started playing under that name in 1980 in their native Belgrade. At the same time two other local bands Idoli and Elektricni Orgazam also started making noise and soon after all three bands ended up on legendary compilation “Paket Aranzman”. It must be said her that all three bands were quite different: Idoli were new wave-ish pop, Elektricni Orgazam punk with synth and Sarlo Akrobata were... um, Sarlo Akrobata!

Sarlo Akrobata sounded like bastard sons of Pere Ubu, Pop Group and Gang of Four (whom they supported in 1981), yet, they sounded like nothing else before or after. Loud, wild, not afraid of experimenting (both in studio and live), Sarlo Akrobata created sounds that were never extremely popular, but certainly very influential on the upcoming generations of Yugo bands.

They recorded their only album in July/August 1981 and pretty much broke up immediately after. Bass player Koja continued to do similar stuff with Disciplina Kicme, while Milan (guitar) formed highly successful Katarina II - later Ekatarina Velika or EKV. Milan passed away in 1994 and Sarlo Akrobata drummer Vd passed away in 1992. Until this day there hasn’t been a legitimate reissue of “Bistriji ili tuplji covek biva kad...” LP. We hope it happens soon.

Here's all of their studio recordings, as well as some live stuff (not great quality, though):
http://rapidshare.com/files/17876005/Sarlo_Akrobata.rar.html