ГОЛЕМАТА ВОДА

Location: Skopje, North Macedonia

Year active: 2025 - Active

Related bands: Бик, Персеида

FFO: Sore Eyelids, heart-on-sleeve, Title Fight (Hyperview), Ridgeway, Gleemer

Golemata Voda (The Great Water, named after the 2004 film) is a midwest emo band formed in Skopje in 2024, featuring members of Бик and Персеида. They released their first single “Има или нема” in October 2025, followed by their self-titled debut full-length in February 2026.

Sung primarily in Macedonian, their sound blends cohesive midwest emo structures with a warm, melodic sensibility, tinged with dream pop melancholy and light, jangly post-hardcore textures. Somber vocals shift between restrained singing and tearful outbursts, giving the record a fragile but persistent emotional weight.

Across its ten tracks, Golemata Voda explores instability - of identity, memory, and emotional endurance. Rather than indulging in nostalgia, the album treats it as something distant and distorted, where the past feels unreachable rather than comforting.

Tracks like “Сила од Небес,” “Мртов,” and “Бунар” lean into themes of exhaustion and internal collapse, capturing a sense of being trapped within repetitive mental states. In contrast, songs such as “Стој Подалеку” and “Ко(Мета)” highlight a tension between withdrawal and dependence, suggesting an inability to fully exist either alone or in connection with others.

By the closing stretch, particularly on “Маѓепсан” and “Билка,” the tone subtly shifts. Not toward resolution, but toward a fragile sense of renewal... less a recovery than a quiet reintroduction to feeling after prolonged emotional numbness.

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Golemata Voda (The Great Water, naziv preuzet iz filma iz 2004. godine) je midwest emo bend formiran u Skoplju 2024. godine, koji okuplja članove bendova Бик i Персеида. Prvi singl „Има или нема“ objavili su u oktobru 2025, nakon čega je usledio njihov istoimeni debitantski album u februaru 2026.

Peva se pretežno na makedonskom, a njihov zvuk spaja kohezivne midwest emo strukture sa toplim, melodičnim senzibilitetom, uz primesu dream pop melanholije i laganih, jangly post-hardcore tekstura. Vokali prelaze iz suzdržanog pevanja u emotivne ispade, dajući albumu krhku, ali postojanu emotivnu težinu.

Kroz deset pesama, Golemata Voda istražuje nestabilnost - identiteta, sećanja i emotivne izdržljivosti. Umesto da se oslanja na nostalgiju, album je tretira kao nešto udaljeno i izobličeno, gde prošlost deluje nedostižno, a ne utešno.

Pesme poput „Сила од Небес“, „Мртов“ i „Бунар“ naginju temama iscrpljenosti i unutrašnjeg raspada, hvatajući osećaj zarobljenosti u ponavljajućim mentalnim stanjima. Nasuprot tome, „Стој Подалеку“ i „Ко(Мета)“ ističu tenziju između povlačenja i zavisnosti, sugerišući nemogućnost da se u potpunosti postoji ni sam, ni u odnosu sa drugima.

U završnici albuma, naročito kroz „Маѓепсан“ i „Билка“, ton se suptilno menja. Ne ka razrešenju, već ka krhkom osećaju obnove... manje kao oporavak, a više kao tiho ponovno upoznavanje sa osećanjem nakon dugotrajnog emotivnog otupljenja.

heart-on-sleeve

Location: Bitola, North Macedonia

Year active: 2020

Members: Marijana Nikolovska (vocals, guitar), Stefan Apostolovski (guitar/drums), Aleksandar Petrovski (bass), Bojan Stanikj (drums, bass)

Related bands: YÖU

FFO: Ashes, Analena, Jejune, Mineral, Now now, Sore Eyelids,  Squirrel Brain, 125, Rue Montmartre

heart-on-sleeve is an emogaze band formed in Bitola, North Macedonia. It was formed as a kind of a side project in 2020, sharing members from other DIY MK bands, such as YÖU.

Their only material to this day is a live recording session taking place in Trnovo. It was recorded in collaboration with SPC Centar-Jadro, as part of their annual music program.

Live at Trnovo consists of seven tracks, all of them midwest emo lamentations soaked in reverberation, at times bordering on dream pop (though not in a psychedelic sense). It serves as a reminder of what emo sounded like in the ’90s - longing, somber, bittersweet, and heartfelt all at once.

Personal highlights from the release include Nevermind, City Lights, Happy Ever After, and Again and Again, mostly due to their emotional crescendos and the cathartic moments spread throughout the set.

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heart-on-sleeve je emogaze bend nastao u Bitolju, Severna Makedonija. Projekat je započet 2020. godine kao svojevrsni sporedni poduhvat, a članovi su istovremeno bili aktivni i u drugim makedonskim DIY bendovima, poput YOU.

Njihov jedini dosadašnji materijal je live snimak sesije održane u Trnovu. Snimanje je realizovano u saradnji sa SPC Centar-Jadro, u sklopu njihovog godišnjeg muzičkog programa. Nakon toga, bend nikada nije objavio studijski snimljen materijal.

Live at Trnovo sadrži sedam pesama - sve redom midwest emo lamentacije natopljene reverbom, koje se povremeno približavaju dream pop atmosferi (mada ne u psihodeličnom smislu). Ovaj snimak deluje kao podsetnik na to kako je emo zvučao devedesetih: čežnjivo, sumorno, gorko-slatko i iskreno, sve u isto vreme.

Lični favoriti sa izdanja su Nevermind, City Lights, Happy Ever After i Again and Again, pre svega zbog snažnih emotivnih kulminacija i katarzičnih trenutaka razasutih kroz ceo nastup.

Their first instagram post.

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LARS FROM NORWAY

Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia

Year active: 2024

Members: Tilen Boršič (guitar, vocals), Anja Mikulan (drums, vocals), Martin Tomažič (bass)

Related bands: ???

FFO: Whirr, Wisp, Slowdive, Jejune, Sore Eyelids, Title Fight (later)

Lars from Norway is an emocore/shoegaze band formed in Ljubljana, Slovenia. They released their first demo single in November 2024, followed by a demo tape (stylized as D(emo) Tejp) a year later - notably recorded on a phone.

Since then, the band has dropped two more singles, some of which received airplay and support from Radio Študent. This led to greater visibility in the Slovenian DIY scene, pushing them onto stages across the country and into lineups alongside newer acts such as Falesia (ITA/SLO).

Their debut single leans heavily into old-school punk. At just around a minute and a half, it can come off repetitive and doesn’t quite reflect the musical direction Lars would explore in their later work.

D(emo) Tejp, on the other hand, shows a dramatic shift. The blurry, reverb-soaked fuzz gives the songs a dreamy, ethereal mood - complete with alternating dual vocals and the occasional harsh shout. It’s raw, lo-fi, and imperfect, but it’s also the first glimpse of the identity the band seems to be carving out for themselves.

The first thing that catches your ears is the way the project builds atmosphere - with slow, saturated chords, teenage sadness and vocals that sound like they're coming from some foggy bedroom. It's the kind of music that doesn't try to be "big" or production-heavy; on the contrary, it relies on intimacy, rawness and a sense of inner distances.

As part of a scene that is rarely associated with such genres in our country, Lars from Norway brings something fresh: music that stands between shoegaze melancholy and the emo sensibility of the early 2000s. It's not just nostalgia, but a real attempt to capture the moment - that mixture of tiredness, longing and tenderness that you feel when the world quiets down a bit.

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Lars from Norway je emocore/shoegaze bend iz Ljubljane, osnovan 2024. godine. Članovi su Tilen Boršič, Anja Mikulan i Martin Tomažič. Prvi demo singl objavili su u novembru 2024, a godinu dana kasnije izbacili su demo kasetu pod nazivom D(emo) Tejp - snimljeno direktno na telefonu.

U periodu posle toga objavili su još dva singla, a nekoliko pesama dobilo je i emitovanje na Radio Študentu. To im je donelo veću vidljivost u slovenačkoj DIY sceni i omogućilo nastupe širom zemlje, uključujući lineupe sa novijim grupama poput Falesia (ITA/SLO).

Njihov debitantski singl oslanja se na old-school punk pristup - kratak, repetetivan i ne baš pokazni primer onoga što će kasnije razviti. D(emo) Tejp, s druge strane, predstavlja veliki estetski zaokret: mutni, reverbom zamagljeni fuzz stvara sanjivu, eteričnu atmosferu, vokali se smenjuju i povremeno pucaju u oštrije krike. Sirovo, lo-fi i tehnički nesavršeno, ali istovremeno prvi pravi nagoveštaj identiteta koji bend danas gradi.

Prvo što upada u uši jeste način na koji projekt gradi atmosferu - sporim, zasićenim akordima, tinejdžerskom tugom i vokalima koji zvuče kao da dopiru iz neke maglovite spavaće sobe. To je onaj tip muzike koji ne pokušava da bude „velik“ ili produkcijski ispeglan; naprotiv, oslanja se na intimnost, sirovost i osećaj unutrašnjih daljina.

Kao deo scene koja se kod nas retko povezuje sa ovakvim žanrovima, Lars from Norway donosi nešto sveže: muziku koja stoji između shoegaze melanholije i emo senzibiliteta ranih dvihiljaditih. Nije to samo nostalgija, već pravi pokušaj hvatanja trenutka – one mešavine umora, čežnje i nežnosti koju osećaš kad se svet malo utiša.

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