08 КУКЛА ~ Hranimo Se Rečima by КУКЛА

The debut album ‘Katarina’ contains the innocence of a
newborn who is screaming into the yet unknown world, but
also the well-versed melancholia of a person at the verge
of writing a suicide letter. This conceptual contrast is
escorted by a clear stylistic resemblance to Milošević’
turbo-folk era on one side and American R&B goddesses of
Bush era on the other. Both, a strong Slavic
introspection with a taste of the working-class fatalism,
and the progressive gender non-conforming pop sound of
the West add to a stylistic richness of the album.
Kукла's voice is warm and playful throughout the album,
and remains bright when she is singing about the grim and
often hopeless moments of her life, which shows how her
music and art have often saved her from the dark side of
herself. In the song Zvezdana she lifts the curtain,
segregates life from death but leaves the innocence of
her youth intact. Palma feels like a tender admission of
her idealist aspiration of romance, whereas Astronaut
exposes the inadequacy of her ex-lovers. The album
characterizes Kукла’s imprisonment and her strong will to
breach the walls that confine her artistic potential.
It makes the listener feel like Kукла is playing in the
closet - choosing dresses, picking identities, only to
face the world even more naked and raw than she ever was
before.