Culture war isn't something new. It's always been used as fuel for political agendas.

So, let us take you to the Balkan Civil War of the 1990s, where music was used as a weapon to further various regional governments' ultra-nationalistic and genocidal agendas. Celebrating "traditional" conservative values of religion, the heteronormative family, hard work and obedience, this newly composed "folk" music usually had banal romantic lyrics about falling in love (always a boy and a girl), heartbreak, marriage and such. In Serbia, this genre of music was perceived as proper and pure, salt-of-the-earth music for the regular, honest, god-fearing, hard-working folks, hard done by the evil "Western" forces that want to break the proud nations into submission. It was classic proto-fascist rhetoric.

On the other hand, there was a minority of "progressive", internationalist, urban, primarily young people who preferred rock and electronic music. This group wanted to be open to the world and stop the war and the rampant nationalism. Peace, reconciliation, unity and solidarity were their goals. Sadly, these voices and their music were pushed to the underground and were often labelled unpatriotic and treasonous.

Before moving out of Serbia, Vaat was a part of the latter group. Fast forward to 2020. Even though the 1990s were a long time ago and he was living in the decadent West, he still felt immense anger and frustration at what had happened over there – all the lives lost, destruction, poverty, hunger, intimidation, blind nationalistic pride, and the opportunities that he never had, all due to people's greed, pride and stupidity. But most of all, he was furious that the one thing that he valued the most, music, was used in such a nasty, dishonest way.

During the first UK Covid lockdown in the spring of 2020, Vaat and his partner Sabine decided to address these long-festering issues. The best way they could do it is to use the idiotic lyrics of a few Serbian "folk" songs and put them against a post-punk backdrop. In their minds, doing this de-weaponised and subverted the unsavoury historical baggage of these songs. Recording them in London, where almost no one would understand the lyrics, made them powerless and meaningless, thus somewhat neutralising all the hurt they represented.

These early Tantrum Zentrum recordings were just a lockdown project – the band as it is now didn't exist then. Sabine and Vaat didn't think these recordings would lead to anything, let alone live performances in the UK and Germany. They were a tool to somehow express and alleviate the anger and shame of the particular time and place where Vaat grew up.

Open up the Culture War Songbook, and if you can't sing along, dance freely wherever you are.

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