martin iz zgornje bele

The choice to sing in their native Slovenian language was an intuitive pathway towards communicating emotions beyond language barriers. “What at first seemed like a wall, turned out to be a bridge,” they say. “There can be a trust that, when you go to say something, the person across from you will understand, and I made these in that spirit of good faith.” At its base, Martin Iz Zgornje Bele paints with a collection of delicate moments, sparsely arranged with fan organ, guitar, mandolin, recorders, cello, glockenspiel and a whole orchestra of instruments that spend most of the time staying quiet, until their moment arrives.

“Any honesty is  because I put no pail between me and the person I am singing to, I am trying to find the most direct way across, to show what dances right next to my soul and demands to be shared. What results is a third thing, between me and the listener, hopefully greater than the sum of its parts.”

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There’s a heightened reality to Martin Sagadin’s music. Approaching their music through Slovenian lyrics and folk instrumentation, they make contemplative, gentle music that breathes and sways. Sagadin’s voice is frail and with faults, but it flexes the power through its rarified sincerity and simple presentation. The album Martin Iz Zgornje Bele calls through the years, piecing together fragments of sound into a transportive glowing swell of emotion.

Sagadin was born in Kranj, Yugoslavia, but has lived in Aotearoa, New Zealand, for the past 19 years. In that time, they’ve developed a reputation as a filmmaker and the go-to music video director for artists like Aldous Harding, Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams and The Bats. With such worthy contemporaries, it’s all the more notable that Martin Iz Zgornje Bele sounds utterly different from any of those artists’ work. “My mum found a mandolin on the side of the road in Aro Valley in Wellington, and I combined it with my fan organ to make my first songs. They came to me fully formed,” they say.