Hello Srajan, I have published a new Lumaudis website and wanted to let you know that I quoted you on the home page and also added a link to your review. I hope this was okay. If not, it has been online for only day or two and no promotion was done yet so I can easily remove it. Some big changes took place at Lumaudis. I'm on my own now, two 'partners' have gone their own way setting up a new label. One of the side effects of this was the reduction of the Lumaudis catalogue to only one title. Not for long though, I already recorded new projects that will publish next year. Despite this not sounding very sensible at first, I decided to give my ex partners 4 titles without compensation while keeping the Lumaudis brand and Ne le tue braze album. Once again I must admit that your review of our Lumaudis albums gave a very good diagnosis of some issues that became more and more evident as time went on: production of exclusivist self-indulgent albums dedicated to promoting a single artist whose major goal was to build a monument to himself. One other issue I had to deal with and found especially difficult to swallow was really extensive editing (over-editing) of recordings for Edin Karamazov which he insisted on. That led to his new name Edit Karamazov. This was to make his performances sound immaculate but at the same time resulted in unnatural perfection. After taking a good break of repeatedly listening to this during the editing process, I found these albums quite fatiguing. It is very evident that this was not only due to chosen repertoire. I find it strange and sad how very talented musicians, being increasingly aware of the possibilities of post production, count on it even before the recording session starts, therefore come less prepared than in pre-digital times. What we are getting is something like Photoshopped music which in particular hurts when you apply these methods to acoustic instruments and classical music. It just ain't right.
My apologies for this rant but your views in your Lumaudis article made me try to explain the situation behind the scenes in more detail. I hope you are enjoying a good life in my second homeland—I have both Irish and Croatian citizenships— and that this virus madness is not affecting you too much. In my hometown of Zagreb we also had a serious earthquake in March of this year just when the lock-down started. Strange times to say at least. All the best, Marin Fulgosi
The website quote is perfectly fine but thanks for asking, Marin. Ireland is in its second nation-wide lock-down now for six weeks until at least December 15th but working out of the home for the last 20 years already, it's not a really big difference personally. As to the rest, it sounds like you rid yourself of some unnecessary baggage. Artistic egos can be tricky to deal with especially over the long term when you're counting on equal not skewed partnerships. You know how to find me as new releases drop. In the meantime, congrats on making a difficult choice which should turn out to have been the right one as you go forward as captain of your own ship without any mutinous crew. Srajan
