Anastasia

Anastasia (Anastasija) was a group from Skopje whose music joined the Byzantine past of Eastern Orthodox church music with Macedonian folk rhythms, played on kaval, gajda and tapan next to samplers, synthesizers and computers. Its soundtrack for Before the Rain, the Academy Award-nominated film by Milčo Mančevski, made the group known far beyond Macedonia.

The group began in 1987 as Apokrifna realnost and took the name Anastasia in 1989. Its members came from the Macedonian new wave and alternative scene. The singer Goran Trajkoski, who also played bagpipes and flute, had sung with Padot na Vizantija and played in Mizar; Klime Kovaceski had been with him in Afektiven naboj and Padot na Vizantija; the guitarist Zlatko Origjanski, also on mandolin and flute, came from Lola V. Stain; and the drummer and keyboard player Zoran Spasovski came from Mizar.

Their first album, Na rjekah vavilonskih, was self-released in 1988 and released again by DOM in 1990. In 1994 the Thessaloniki label Poeta Negra issued a 12-inch EP with "By the Rivers of Babylon" and "Pass Over", and the same year PolyGram released the Before the Rain soundtrack, which sold thousands of copies around the world.

Anastasia wrote music for films, theatre and television. Its music for the theatre piece Bachanallia toured Europe in 1996. Melourgia followed in 1997 on Libra Music, with a reworked "By the Rivers of Babylon" and pieces such as "Lazi me sestro", "Gori (Skopje)", "Kjania adžamija", "Daleku" and "Finale" from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In 1997 the single "Face/Burn" came out on Third Ear Music, and Nocturnal (1998), which added electronic sounds, with songs such as "Face", "Child" and "Thanksgiving Dream", remains the group's last album.

Wikipedia gives the group's active years as 1987 to 2002. Goran Trajkoski went on to make electronic music as Gotra, to compose for film and theatre and, after Mizar reunited in the 2000s, to front that band.