I’m pretty sure Ne Nehledej, which is said to mean “Stop Searching”, is in the Czech language, because Iva Bittová is Czech. I don’t know that much about her and frankly this Song of the Day mostly exists to highlight remarkable video, but Ne Nehledej is a nice song and Bittová is a great entertainer while also being out there on the edge. She sings and plays violin, and is as much performance art as music. But (unlike some performance artists) this performance is all about music.
It’s a bit confusing, because this song appears on Bittová’s eponymous first album from 1986, but then there’s another 1994 album with that title, which in that listing is translated as “No, Do Not Seek”. One gathers perhaps that it’s a signature song for her?
Credits go to Lauren for this suggestion; I’d never run across Ms Bittová till she pointed her out.
This is part of the Song of the Day series (background).
Links · Amazon, iTunes (you have to buy the whole album), Spotify. Now, here’s that video of a live performance. I strongly recommend that you go hide somewhere for six minutes and pay attention.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Matěj Cepl (Feb 03 2018, at 01:53)
“No, Don't Seek” is the proper translation to English. It is possible than in 1986 (before the 1989) she couldn’t manage to get proper translation into English.
Ms. Bittová is a great musician and entertainer. She started in a theater (https://youtu.be/tipngkNZMq8 from the play about legendary highwayman from 1920s in the Carpathian Ruthenia, kind of Robin Hood-like figure, but a way more bloody; title of this song is nice as well, “They killed, they killed”). However, she moved quickly into pure musician, where she amazes everybody by breadth of what she is able to cover: from folk music (she is Roma by nationality) through theatre music to some really weird experimental jazzy stuff (this one, or for example https://youtu.be/6eWIlcyqA-4). However, she has also has more rock past with the group Dunaj (e.g., https://youtu.be/6BfIaS1AKOI).
Whole generation of musical critics tries to put her into some musical type box. So far, they are unsuccessful.
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