Ripe, bright and tasty as stuffed peppers, LA CHERGA create 21st Century electro-roots music with a pan-Balkanic consciousness.

Nevenko Bucan, a Croat electronics wizard with a taste for dubbed out Balkan grooves, fled the fiery nationalism that destroyed Tito’s Yugoslavia. In Graz in Austria he met Bosnian guitarist Muamer Gazibegovic with whom he founded the project LA CHERGA. 

LA CHERGA came together as these musicians began to feel out a new musical identity, sharing what they call a “Post Pessimist Philosophy”, working on cultural exchange projects, differentiating between war profiteers and anti-war profiteers. LA CHERGA (named after a Balkan rag rug, appropriate for these musical recyclers) began weaving a sonic collage, inventing a Balkan internationalist music & manifesto: their sound drawing on the best of both East and West (skanking rhythms and sour horns/boiling dub versus Detroit techno) while the lyrics center on freeing your mind from mental slavery.

Bringing together Balkan brass, jazz vocals, Jamaican grooves and electronic beats might sound like a musical recipe for disaster but LA CHERGA rip up the rule book and demonstrate how to build musical and cultural bridges. Grab some friends, something good to drink and turn up the music: LA CHERGA create radical unity party music.