condition (record/cover): EX- (a couple of clicks at the beginning of side 2) / EX

With original innersleeve.

The Yugoslav cultural ecosystem produced few records as singular as this. Recorded at the Top Ten studio in Ljubljana in May 1982 and issued in September the same year by the state label ZKP RTV Ljubljana, the Begnagrad debut is a striking first-generation East European avant-rock statement: Slovenian by passport, RIO-adjacent by aesthetic, profoundly local in its sound vocabulary. The group's name means "Escape to the Castle". The music sometimes sounds exactly like that, all of Mitteleuropa's wedding bands packing their instruments and bolting up a hill.

Bratko Bibič's accordion is the engine. His instrument carries the ghost of Slovenian folk straight into the territory of Bertolt Brecht, Astor Piazzolla and the looser corners of Frank Zappa, without sentimentality. Around him Bogo Pečnikar twists clarinet and baritone sax into avian shapes; Nino de Gleria plays bass like a tuba section; Aleš Rendla swings on drums while doubling violin; Boris Romih scatters guitar and small instruments through the mix. "Cosa Nostra/Waltz" is the wildest seven minutes the band committed to tape, a mock-criminal procession in three-quarter time. "Coc'n'Rolla (Ljubljana Ponoči)" turns local nightlife into a fanfare.

This is the original vintage Yugoslav pressing in its white outer sleeve with printed inner. Bibič would later steer Nimal with Tom Cora and Pippin Barnett, but Begnagrad is where the project's whole vocabulary was forged. A scarce regional document.