KOLOLIRA is a band reinterpreting traditional folk songs coming from Croatia (kololira = hurdy gurdy)
Dunja Knebl & Friends got together to perform at a world music festival in Varna, Bulgaria, in 2013, as representatives of the Croatian Radio.
They liked playing together so much that they chose to continue as KOLOLIRA (Croatian for hurdy gurdy) with many plans ahead. What were just plans turned out to be exactly what they wished for in real life: they played at the Solin ETHNOAMBIENT festival in July the same year, their first album was released in October, as well as their video clip. So, in nine months the band performed at two international world music festivals, recorded their first album, and filmed their first video clip. This was topped with a great opinion on their performance by Elizabeth Kinder in her regular column in the world music magazine fRoots:
“It was odd, or maybe perfect synchronicity, that I’d been thinking about Charlie
Gillett moments before and how he might have liked the brilliant Croatian folk band
Kololira that had just been playing. The ancient songs sounded so cool and modern
with singer Dunja Knebl (reminding me of Nico at her best), doing what Shirley
Collins did for English folk song.”
Gillett moments before and how he might have liked the brilliant Croatian folk band
Kololira that had just been playing. The ancient songs sounded so cool and modern
with singer Dunja Knebl (reminding me of Nico at her best), doing what Shirley
Collins did for English folk song.”
Then another compliment from fRoots magazine: a song from their album TAMO DOLI (Cula jesam) was included in the December/January compilation, followed by an article about Dunja Knebl in the April edition.
In the summer of 2014 TAMO DOLI was in the European World Music charts for two months (July & August), and Kololira performed at several festivals.
Songlines reviewer Kim Burton wrote “Who knew melancholic songs of woe could be such fun?” and “…this is a highly enjoyable contribution from a set of fine musicians”, and TAMO DOLI was given 4 stars out of 5.
In 2015 they recorded and released their second album “I Mara i cvetje” nominated for the Croatian Porin prize.
After five years their new album in 2020 is released entitled “Tamo gori”. besides Croatian folk sings they have included traditional folk songs from different countries.
KOLOLIRA is on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/kololira?ref=hl
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