Foltin

Foltin is a Macedonian band formed in Bitola in 1995. The name comes from Karel Čapek's last novel, Life and Work of the Composer Foltýn. Their music mixes indie, alternative, world music, funk, electroacoustic sounds and jazz, and their concerts are theatrical, in what has been called a "pseudo-immigrant" cabaret style. For years they sang in an invented mix of sounds borrowed from Spanish, French, Portuguese and Romanian, before moving to Macedonian and English.

The idea at the start was to catch the sound of the Mediterranean and of Eastern European cartoon music, played partly on toys, whistles, pots and cardboard boxes. The debut Outre-Mer was recorded in January 1997 with producer Kokan Dimuševski by Branislav Nikolov (vocals, guitar), Oliver Josifovski (double bass), Pece Nikolovski (clarinet), Aleksandar Popovski (percussion) and Blagoj Petrovski (kaval). Archimed (2000) was taken from a concert at the Universal Hall in Skopje, and Donkey Hot (2003), a story about a donkey that wanted to be a horse, was recorded at home in Bitola.

Lo-Lee-Taa-Too (2005), a parody of "Lolita" sung in Macedonian and English, gave them their first big hit, "Milica", sung by actor Senko Velinov. From late 2003 the core line-up settled, and in 2006 the city of Bitola gave the band its 4 Noemvri award. The 2008 album Ovaa transplantirana mašina za čukanje dosega ne tipkala ljubovno pismo, their first signed in Cyrillic, produced the radio hit known as "Vezilke", whose chorus joins lines by Blaže Koneski and Kočo Racin, and the web magazine plagij.at named it album of the year.

Theatre and film music has run alongside the records since 1998. They won best music at the Vojdan Černodrinski festival for "Makedonska krvava svadba" and later for "Drums in the Night", and the Sterija award for "Boat for Dolls" at SNG Drama Ljubljana. Their work with directors Aleksandar Popovski and Martin Kočovski took them to theatres in Zagreb, Rijeka, Ljubljana and Prilep, and they wrote the score for the documentary Honeyland, a Sundance 2019 award winner and a nominee at the 92nd Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.

Later albums include Penelope X (2011), made with composer Nikola Kodžabašija and drummer Goce Stevkovski, Antitelo (2012), sung entirely in Macedonian, Pijan slavej (2015), recorded in Bitola for the band's twentieth year, Momoma (2019), Theatre Miniatures (2020) and Simultan baknež (2021). Foltin have played festivals across Europe and beyond, from Croatia, Italy and Austria to England, Russia, Lebanon and Turkey.