MIHA KRALJ

Miha Kralj biography
Miha KRALJ is the pioneer of electronic music in Slovenia and indeed, in entire former Yugoslavia.

Born in Ljubljana, he started playing accordion as a child. During 60's and 70's, he played organ, Mellotron and Davoli Synth in various pop-rock combos (namely DEKAMERONI and PRAH) with moderate success. He discovered the music of Jean-Michel JARRE in 1979, and decided to take a similar path; he upgraded his gear with Korg sequencer and polyphonic synthesizer and became the first musician in Yugoslavia which followed a ''one-man band'' concept with cosmic and ambient synth music. After the initial rejection by Slovenian publisher, his newly recorded debut album, ''Andromeda'' was released in 1980. for a Belgrade label PGP RTB. The record was an instant success: ''Andromeda'' was sold in more than 20 000 copies in Yugoslavia, it became popular in Benelux, Sweden and Soviet Union. (The self-titled main theme was often played during ski-jumps in Planica, Slovenia).

Following his skyrocketing popularity, Kralj released his second album ''Odyssey'' in 1982., also very spacey and more complex. His third, and so far, last album ''Electric Dreams'' was released in 1985., complexity-wise and melody-wise being somewhere between the first two, but with a more prominent nod to a contemporary (for the time) synth-pop sound collage.

Kralj never toured. However, he was performing a lot in local venues in his native Slovenia, a practice he continues to this day. After the mid-eighties he had a moderate success with songs which he wrote for a number of Slovenian pop-artists, mostly in Flashdance/Moroder style. He is also composing music for TV documentaries.

Kralj re-released his albums in self-production and CD's are available through his web site.

Kralj was labeled ''Yugoslav Jarre'', and rightfully so: he was the first in the country to do a music reminiscent of Jarre, pre-classical Vangelis and Tangerine Dream. His albums are recommended for anyone who is inclined towards cosmic synthscapes, analog orchestrations and old-school ambient.



Moris Mateljan, 2012.

Sources:
aleksandararezina.blogspot.com
mihakralj.com
pugachov.ru/eem/kafram.html