A rainy Sunday afternoon is such an overexploited concept in popular culture of the past Century (if not more) that it sort of feels wrong to start a post with describing such a scene setting, but here I am, sitting at my desk on a rainy Sunday afternoon, with a hot cup of coffee by my side, feeling inspired to write a post about how my latest EP ''Island Life'' came to life this summer (and yes, I'm even playing sad and mellow jazz on Deezer). So, here's what happened.
THE ISLAND OF RAVA
The facts are:
Rava is the smallest inhabited island in the Croatian part of the Adriatic.
It's surface area is no bigger than 3.6 square kilometres. To put that in perspective, the old town of Zadar (and Rava is part of Zadar's archipelago) located on a small peninsula has an area of about 25 square kilometres. So, you could fit about 4 Rava sized islands in the old town of Zadar. It's that small.
It's inhabited, alright. There's about 70 people over the age of 80 years old living there throughout the year. There's no drinking water so people harvest rain water and store it in specially designed tanks. The water is then run through purification filters so it is fit to drink. In case of a fire, everything would burn out. In case of an emergency, you can only rely on an ambulance boat coming for your rescue from the nearby islands of Iž or Dugi Otok or a hellicopter, if you're really fucked up and lucky at the same time. The only official road on the island is the one connecting Vela Rava (Big Rava) and Mala Rava (you guessed it, Small Rava), which are the only two settlements on the island as well. There's a single shop located in Vela Rava with everything you need except bread. You need to sign up for bread in advance so they can order it by boat for the next day. There are no bars, no clubs, no hotels, no restaurants and no tourists. It's also heaven like. The waters are crystal clear with stunning lagoons everywhere you turn, figs the size of apples grow on every corner, it hardly ever rains during the summer and it's so quiet you can hear your nervous system. The only people that spend the summer on the island are the ones that bought old houses there years ago or the ones that inherited land from their long gone families. It's like spending time on a near ghost island. It sort of looks like one day someone came and said ok, you have 15 minutes to pack and get out of here. Everything is still there except for the people.
THE CONTEXT
Usually, I like my urban routine. You know, waking up, going about your business, taking a short coffee break in your favorite local bar, meeting people, doing more work and then relaxing over a cold beer in the evening. It's something I enjoy and it's actually something that helps me focus. I'm not a fan of extreme isolation so deciding to spend a week on an island such as Rava was really a kind of an experiment in handling yourself in such an unusual context. This was also the first time me and my girlfriend decided to go on vacation together and it was also sort of a chance to test the ''living together'' part of our relationship. A few days before we got there, I was performing with Moskau in Zadar as a part of a big Andy Warhol exhibition where we were invited to playe our rendition of the Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat. It was 4 days of partying, playing music, meeting new and exciting people and heavy drinking. The change of context from that to a secluded island was huge and it really had an impact on me.
I went from that to this in a day:
THE UNPLANNED EP
My sole intention of visiting the island was vacation. It really was. The idea was to relax and enjoy the summer with my girlfriend. Walk around. Swim. Drink wine. Smoke cigarettes. Sleep in. That sort of thing. No music and no work. Of course, I brought an acoustic guitar with me because I never travel without my acoustic guitar and, as they say, things happen. Upon arrival, I felt great. The island was so overwhelmingly beautiful, I couldn't believe it. I felt I could stay there forever, just sitting in a chair, watching the sea, slowly growing old. I picked up my guitar and I wrote a tune called I Could Sit Here and Grow Old. I thought the tune was nice and worth pursuing, especially in a band formation, so I recorded it with my mobile phone because that was the best recording device I had laying around apart from my laptop's microphone (which really isn't as good as the stuff they put in your regular smartphones these days). It's a song about embracing the beauty of the world and just letting it sink in. It came naturally to me and I just wanted to record it so I don't forget it. The next day, as I was swimming in the crystal clear waters, the idea of writing and recording an EP while on the island popped into my head. I didn't think much of it because I knew I was only there for a week and that I couldn't possibly do all that with only my mobile phone. I also started to think about the Human Spirit and what it really means. It was something I've been thinking about for a long time but couldn't really figure out how to put in a song. That night I wrote a song called About the Human Spirit. It's actually a short view on the concept of the Human Spirit, something that we as human being really take pride in. The Human Spirit is considered to be a propeler of our civilization, something which enables us to grow and to develop, something that is unique to us. The Human Spirit drives us forward, makes us want to learn more, to do more. It makes a climb mountains, fly airplanes, venture into space, stuff like that. It makes people go over their limit. It helps us evolve. The longer I thought about it, the more I started to think the Human Spirit is something of a Sword of Damocles. It's a moral anecdote which referres to a sense of peril and danger faced by those in position of power. And that's exactly what the Human Spirit is or as I've put it everything's a wonder/isn't it a wonder/but you start to wonder what to do with it/so now we're paying tickets to be amazed. It was after that song I realized I have to write and record an EP. Even with just a mobile phone. After a few more days, I started to crave civilization. I was missing my urban routine and I couldn't help it. To be clear, I still had an amazing time and enjoyed every day, but there was this underlying feeling of anxiety I couldn't shake off. However, it was a different kind of anxiety than the one I usually feel when I have bad days. It was not the anxiety I was used to. My usual anxiety was gone and it was replaced by a new one. The only way I could get rid of it was to put it in song (that's also going to be a subject of my following post) so I wrote a tune called It's Called Anxiety. This time, the very absence of my anxietsy and what causes it, started to cause more anxiety. It was an entirely new feeling for me. On our last day, I felt better. I knew I was going back home and I was looking forward to it. Before our departure, I wrote a song called This is The Best That I Can Do. It has a melodic refference to one of the songs describing my homeland (
This is the front cover. The photo was also taken on the island.
This is the back cover. It's the lagoon I was swimming in every day.
The album is available on bandcamp (https://ivangrobenski.bandcamp.com/album/island-life-ep) but it's also available on Youtube so you can listen to it here:
I hoped you enjoyed this sotry. This EP really means much to me. I'll talk to you more tomorrow. Take care!