Uros Spasojevic, bassist and composer, is committed to the idea that the bass guitar can be a leading melodic and solo instrument capable of viable polyphony and improvisational logic that predominantly includes experiments using effects. His basic idea was to create unconventional approach to bass playing that provides a different light on the instrument’s interesting and diverse sounds.
Winter Tales
Winter Tales: Beyond the Image, Beyond the Sound
In his book Sculpting in Time, filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky (as translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair) once wrote, “[T]he infinite cannot be made into matter, but it is possible to create an illusion of the infinite: the image.” Yet the latter term could be replaced by any number of others, and in this case music is the viable substitution. Electric bassist Uros Spasojevic’s Winter Tales is indeed an illusion of the infinite. Better, then, to invite its sister concept of the image back into play, as neither seems exclusive in the present soundscape.
We might point to unintended references throughout the album. The near-subliminal ticking of “Time” simultaneously evokes the tense psychological terrains of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar and the ambient classicism of Aphex Twin’s “Leaves.” Every internal pulse is indicative of some external provocation—invisible yet real enough to be experienced in sequence. Such faith is omnipresent throughout the session. Recorded live in the studio without overdubs, it severs our attention from earthly things in favor of interdimensional songs, shedding familiar associations in the barbs of new event horizons.
That said, one finds hints of a collective past in the final “Senok.” Grounded in an arpeggio floating in space but out of time, it is the third iteration of a piece that appeared on Spasojevic’s debut and on his last album, V. In this, and all tracks leading up to it, beats an imaginative heart, and as such activates echo chambers of our own—for despite the digital means of communication, its language feels acoustic to the touch.
Generally speaking, we find themselves steeped in one of two modes: suspended or grounded. In the former vein, we encounter such looser constructions as “Look” and “Two,” in which hints of lifetimes beyond our own mingle with elegies yet to be born. Among these, the opening “Tremor” is a spiritual calling card that stacks the deck for all to come, while “Breath” turns the known into the unknown (if not also the other way around) with its misty overlay. Like “Tribute,” it’s a nod to our need for peace, unity, and inner sanctums.On the measured side of the spectrum, we find ourselves tangled in the climates of “Wind” and “Rain.” Each is a sincere letter of the inner voice, and pulls us back to earth with “Song for J.B.” The influence of its dedicatee (Jakob Bro) lingers like a morning sun that sets almost as quickly as it rises.
Here we have an album of seemingly contradictory organs sharing the same body and blood. Cyclicity is paramount, an atmospheric feeling that touches the mind and fills its void with more void so that our spirit has room to write itself as it goes along. And so, tempting as it is to dub Winter Tales as a soundtrack without a film, such a characterization assumes that cinema needs images at all. Are the flickers of the mind more fleetingthan those upon a screen? Are they not in infinite supply? If so, then perhaps the soul is an adequate surface on which to project these melodies, each a character with something to say and a story to introduce.
Tyran Grillo
Winter 2020
About the album:
“Winter Tales is a singular accomplishment: a triumph of mood and atmosphere, and Spasojevic’s most personal project to date.”
Mark Sullivan
Music Journalist
All About Jazz
Full review on 
“Altogether an absorbing album, bold and imaginative, which listeners keen on spacious, electronic sounds will find rewarding”
John Watson
Music journalist
Jazz Journal
Full review on 
“Winter Tales is a reflective, pensive and insightful travel through sonic possibilities that strive for an unusual use of means. Through a set of smart pedals, sparse notes and few themes Spasojevic is capable of creating a world of dreamy mirrors and haunting landscapes”
Marcello Nardi
Music journalist
Music for watermelons
Full review on musicforwatermelons.com
“Musikken – som varer i over 72 minutter – er drømmende, luftig, åpen, melodisk og kall det gjerne bildefremkallende. Den nesten roper på bilder eller gjerne en film, men den står så avgjort strålende på egne bein også. Uros Spasojevic forteller oss at han er en elbassist, komponist og ikke minst en musikalsk tenker som vi bør gi mye oppmerksomhet.”
Tor Hammerø
Music journalist
nettavisen.no
Full review on nettavisen.no
“Kako se muzika sa albuma odmiče od njegovog početka, zaboravljate da je muzika nastala na el. bass gitari. Uroš nas, manirom velikog umjetnika, uvodi u svoju intimu, u svoj svijet lijepih tonova. Uz sve, bude nam se emocije koje nas filmskim slikama vode kroz razne zamišljenje predjele.”
Dragutin Matošević
Music journalist
Full review on baricada.com
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Melody
Valternativa Recordings proudly presents live album Melody by bassist and composer Uros Spasojevic.
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Uros Tomic in Valjevo in April 2020.
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