RECORD TURNOVER 80s HITS #247
Borghesia was an electronic music group that began its journey in Ljubljana, Slovenia around 1982, when four members of a theatre company started playing together. Their early music was accompaniment for performances and video pieces. It came out via FV Založba – the independent record label they started, and furthermore the first of its kind in what was then Yugoslavia.
Aldo and Dario were songwriters and the producers, recording everything, and Zemira and Neven created all the visuals. Borghesia always worked with the prohibited, taboo or repressed by regime. EBM was just appearing around this time and the group’s first album was release on cassette thanks to the non-profit organisation ŠKUC that has its roots in the 1968 student movement of Ljubljana and still exists. At the time they operated a gallery in the city.
They followed up the selftitled 1983 album with Clones in the next year, once again through ŠKUC. With the subtitle ‘music for video’ the pieces were conceived for various video works. This 11-track tape was remastered for Dark Entries and reissued in 2012, and a new pressing of this sold out release was just made available.
Dark Entries have also reissued Borghesia’s third and self-released album Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti, which you can find on streaming services. Their subsequent releases mostly came out via PIAS, and are therefore more easily accessible.
Borghesia disbanded in 1995 but actually got back together 15 years later and have released plenty of new music in the past decade. Top image of Zemira Alajbegovic from the play It Smelled Like Spring by The FV 112_15 Theatre, 1982.
