Edi East Trance Blues

There is something new on the Istrian rock scene. For the first time in his long career, Edi Maružin decided to perform as a solo singer. After 37 years of working in Gustafi (until 1992, Gustaph i njegovi dobri duhovi), and tired of investing and submitting to his audience, he changes tracks. Although almost all of their albums offer the blues whiff, this is the first time the full repertoire consists exclusively of blues and trance blues genre. Inspired by the black blues legends, more precisely North Mississippi Hill Country Blues like Fred McDowell, Junior Kimbrough, Belton Sutherland, and above all the legendary R.L. Burnside, there are of course other blues singers, like Charlie Patton, Otis Taylor, Son House … Edi Maružin started working on his album – SULFUR.

Initially, willing to perform with a minimal number of collaborators (as opposed to Gustafi), he began collecting accompanying musicians and for this purpose invited his longtime associate, drummer Čedomir Mošanj and producer Edi Cukerić. The team was first joined by Labin rocker Pepe Ljuna (guitar and harmonica) and from the start the legend of Pula rock, bassist player Bili Milovan, later replaced by Danijel Paulović from Cerovlje. The enthusiasm and dedication initially shown by this quad-core led by the conductor Cukerić assured Maružin that it was not just a group of accompanying musicians, but a proper band, which is how they became the Edi East Trance Blues (EETB), a band that you are sure to hear about more soon.

They made the first album “Sulfur” in the peace of the Marigold atmosphere, at Edi´s Studio Kumpir. It contains 10 songs with a minimalist content, and lots of instruments (drum, bass, cigar box guitar and mouth harmonics). The album, released by Croatia Records, came out in November 2018 and immediately won over the music critics, and the audience’s confidence is still growing. The lyrics, as expected from Maružin, are written in Istrian slang, with themes of love, the human psyche and human depravity. “We are not African Americans, we are not Americans, but we have our own blues, Istrian white blues,” Edi tells us about the project. “We have been carrying music within us for hundreds of years, in our genes, we have easily transformed it and have come up with a new, fresh and interesting blues variant. Those who love old, original blues are sure to love it”