Poravna (album)

Poravna
Studio album by Vesna Pisarović
Released	6 June 2025 (2025-06-06)
Studio	Bonello Tonstudio (Berlin, Germany) SoundBrick Studio (Zagreb, Croatia)
Genre	Avant-garde jazz sevdah
Length	63:57
Language	Bosnian
Label	PDV Records
Producer	Pisarović Hamidulin
Vesna Pisarović chronology
A Fish in My Pocket (2023) Poravna (2025)
Singles from Poravna
"Pokraj Save bagrem drvo raste" Released: 9 April 2025 "Vrbas vodo, što se često mutiš?" Released: 14 May 2025

Poravna is the ninth studio album by the Croatian singer Vesna Pisarović. It was released on 6 June 2025 through PDV Records. Recorded in two live sessions in Berlin and Zagreb, the album saw Pisarović collaborating with jazz musicians Noël Akchoté, Tony Buck, Greg Cohen and Axel Dörner. Sonically, it is an experimental record that fuses Bosnian folk genre of sevdah with the avant-garde jazz improvisation. The album was met with acclaim from critics, who praised its ambitious and original concept.

Pisarović was born in the Bosnian town of Brčko, where her family briefly settled for work, and grew up listening to sevdah, as her mother was a fan of the genre.^[1] In 2015, she discovered a lost radio show from the 1960s, edited and hosted by the Yugoslav ethnomusicologist Vladimir Milošević, who was making field recordings with amateur singers in the area around Banja Luka. The songs reminded Pisarović of the Japanese pentatonic scales and Indian raga—which she was studying at the time.^[2] She also discovered the Sarajevan sevdah singer Emina Zečaj.^[3]

From Milošević's field recordings, Pisarović was particularly impressed by the voice of Rasema Katana, an amateur Bosniak singer, whose singing technique reminded Pisarović of jazz vocals, such as those by Billie Holiday or Carmen McRae, or even of jazz saxophone, of Steve Lacy or Lee Konitz. "Her voice was one of a full sound, without vibrato, with truly beautiful phrasing and a very personal approach to the typical sevdah melismatic ornaments, which she sang less in a quarter-tone fashion, and more as if she was playing with scales or tone rows", Pisarović said. From this came the idea of blending sevdah and jazz. "What I discovered about it with the ethnomusicological research of Vlado Milošević fascinated me, especially the drone-like hypnotic quality of the singing and the accompaniment, and I was attempting to find ways to transpose this in a completely different musical idiom – and especially how to use this material for sonic experiments or collective improvisation."^[1][2]

Pisarović began working on the album in 2017. She traveled from her then-residence of Berlin to Sarajevo, where she met with musicologists who helped her develop the vocal technique. She spent three years on research and working on her voice, as sevdah required techniques—"sophisticated voice, without vibrato, with lots of air"—different from techniques required by jazz and pop music. Pisarović first revealed that she was working on a sevdah album in a 2023 Gloria interview, where she also announced that she's working on a new pop album, her first since 2005's Peti. Poravna was finished two weeks before the interview.^[3]

Poravna reimagines the Bosnian folk genre of sevdah, blending the traditional melodies with the avant-garde approach of jazz improvisation. The album focuses on the sevdah subtype poravna, "the song of long breath", which lends it its name. Unable to sing sevdah the traditional way, Pisarović sought to "transpose the traditional singing somewhere else, with the aid of techniques from jazz or improvised music". She, however, wanted to avoid "falling into a trap of making 'hybrids' of tradition of all sorts, the stuff that usually characterizes 'world music', which is not a label or an approach that I am particularly fond of, as I see it mostly as a means of commercializing traditions."^[1]

Poravna features contributions from the trumpeter Axel Dörner, the Necks' percussionist Tony Buck, double bassist Greg Cohen, and the Parisian guitarist Noël Akchoté.^[2]

The recording occurred in two live sessions in Berlin and Zagreb,^[4] separated by the COVID-19 pandemic. There were "many hit-and-miss elements of the first session, which was simply a very open attempt at improvising collectively over a minimally set form." For the second session, a different, more cautious approach was taken, and the scope of the instrument interplays was reduced. This reflects the traditional way of performing poravna, which is sung a cappella or with the sparse accompaniment of the saz or the accordion.^[1] Pisarović's instructions were minimal and poetic, leaving Dörner, Buck, Cohen and Akchoté complete freedom and space for improvisation.^[5]

The lead single "Pokraj Save bagrem drvo raste" was released on 9 April 2025. The album was announced on 5 May 2025.^[2] The second single, "Vrbas vodo, što se često mutiš?", was released on 14 May 2025.^[5]

The album was released on 6 June 2025 through PDV Records, whom Pisarović previously collaborated on the release of her 2017 album Naša velika pjesmarica. It was released digitally and as a double LP.^[6]

In a positive review, Mixer's Anđelo Jurkas characterized Poravna as Pisarović's "indie venture into the realm of Bosnian sevdalinka. A place where she sweeps away the showbiz-style prostitution of the genre by voices like that of Božo Vrećo." Jurkas praised Pisarović for "not caring about commercial potentials for artistic challenges."^[7] Hrvoje Horvat of Večernji list dubbed Poravna a "brilliant neo-folk noir experiment in which sevdah serves the same role as Cuban music did for Ry Cooder or Polish klezmer for Tom Waits. But at its core, Poravna this year is what the fantastic Dunije were last year with their ethnographic exploration on the album Bilo je sada."^[4]

A Green Man Review's Gary Whitehouse praised the album as an "absolute tour de force of modernized traditional music." He further praised the moments on the album where Pisarović abandons the "clean, clear vocal style" that she employs through the majority of the album, and "pushes the free improv envelope into Yoko Ono territory".^[8]

• Vesna Pisarović – vocals, producer, executive producer^[6]
• Noël Akchoté – electric guitar, acoustic guitar, Dobro
• Greg Cohen – double bass
• Axel Dörner – trumpet
• Hamidulin – producer, executive producer
• Adrian von Ripka – recording engineer, mixing, mastering
• Tobias Obert – recording engineer
• Luka Čabo – recording engineer
• Ana Kuzmanić – illustration
• Ana Labudović – graphic design