Mario Batkovic: A Technical and Aesthetic Triumph

“The seated audience rise to applaud at the close, euphorically greeting an utterly captivating set.”The Skinny

 

Transcending the traditional into the modern day is hard to do well. In an ever-changing, high paced world continuously pushing for the new and original (something Supersonic certainly celebrates), the classical is welcome if it can keep up.

It is true innovators like Mario Batkovic, bridging the two so effortlessly, who recapture the joys of experimentation in music. Pushing the accordion to the unthinkable limits of its capabilities the Swiss-Bosnian artist is no doubt a master of his chosen instrument, with his proven ability to create the work of a full band of synths with a single apparatus.

 

 

“I chose the path of greatest resistance for my music voluntarily”, he admits, being on a mission to not only expand the possibilities of the instrument but to show how the accordion has enabled him a channel to explore and express a freedom that he has been denied through the various physical, social, cultural, and political borders that have existed in his life.

Signed to Geoff Barrow’s Invada Records label, Batkovic’s music refuses to be pigeonholed. Within his work he creates a staggering range of pitch, volume and timbre unknown of the instrument, immersing the listener in a whole new sonic spaciality and vivid, intricate soundscape: a technical and aesthetic triumph.

Think Yann Tiersen- delicate and melodic- meets visions of Viking warriors sailing across oceans; it’s by turns light, heavy, minimal and virtuosic, particularly when he plays so quietly you can hear nothing but the percussive tapping of his fingers on the keys.

Watch Mario below perform and discuss his work and process whilst on a beach, at Into The Great Wide Open Festival in Vlieland, the Netherlands, and experience his remarkable practice for yourself at this year’s Supersonic Festival. TICKETS ON SALE HERE

 

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