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e-mail: info@karma.com.hr
Vocals: Tara - Majda Suselj
MC: DJ Neno - Nenad Cirjak
Keyboards: Pipi - Josip Miani,
The dance movement in Croatia has grown intensively the last few years. The band Karma is reaching for the throne, and is well on its way in doing that.
Karma is from the city of Umag, in the province of Istria (northwest coast of Croatia).
Officially the band was founded in 1999, although Neno and Pipi already worked together since 1993. Influenced by the (nearby) Italian outgoing scene, their music could be described as electronica similar to Gigi D’Agostino, Scooter, Sash, Mollele and bands like Eiffel 65.
DJ Neno is both a fan of and expert in dance music. Neno has been working as a professional DJ over the last 15 years, travelling across Europe searching for the best possible sounds and styles – a pure trend watcher.
Pipi gained experience in the music industry as a keyboard player. With his previous band he travelled all over Europe. He can be considered a walking jukebox; playing classical music, pop and rock hits, evergreens – you name it. Pipi’s idols are Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Kraftwerk and Enigma.
The last piece of the puzzle was a singer for the band. After many troubles finding one, they ran into Mirela Zemcak, a former piano teacher whose voice fit well with the band’s sound. Soon afterwards Mirela started to write lyrics for the band, and the band had to recruit a new singer. In 2000 Tara was already singing professionally for two years, and fit perfectly into Karma. As a result of that, a deal was signed with Menart.
The first single from their debut album Sedam dana was ‘Reci mi ne’. The song was well received by clubs, radio DJ’s and fans of dance parties. A few weeks before the release of the album, Karma performed the song ‘Sedam dana’ at the Split festival. The song received an ‘best arrangement’ award. This positive feedback gave Karma energy to continue their good work.
In August 2001 the album, containing 16 tracks and one remix was released. Though Neno and Pipi created most of the tracks, the biggest response came from their cover versions of the ’80s smash hits. Originally these songs were performed preformed by several famous Croatian artists (‘Glavo luda’ by Zdravko Colic and ‘Zaustavite zemlju’ by Prljavo kazaliste).
In September 2002 Karma released their follow-up album, Zavrti zivot. In addition to the standard release, there was a limited edition made especially for DJ’s, with extended versions of some songs. This limited edition was almost immediately sold out.
A huge hit was the song ‘Prije nego mi haljinu svuces’, which was the biggest Croatian summer hit in 2002.
By the end of that year two singles went to the tops of airplay charts. The first, ‘Bozicna pjesma’, was recorded at the end of 2001 and was presented as a maxi single to all radio stations in Croatia. Since the song became hugely success, it came to be included on the second album.
The second single, ‘Ako odes’, became a hit with the whole dance population. Both songs were broadcast on the radio and TV stations across Croatia and Slovenia. In 2002, Karma also won “Victory Award” and “Pink Award” for best dance artist on Balkan.
The year 2003 was a true success story. In March the band performed ‘Nocas te ne dam nikome’ at Dora, the Croatian preliminary round for the Eurovision song Festival. The single had intensive airplay afterwards.
That summer the band went on their first international tour to Czech Republic. This tour (in cooperation with Universal and Popron Traxx) was a follow-up to the major success of the Karma singles in the Czech charts (higher rankings then acts as Pink, Madonna, Avril Lavigne, J.Lo and Justin Timberlake).
This was the beginning of the ‘karma-mania’ in Czech Republic. Both albums went platinum and at the same time were among the top ten albums on the national sales chart. Next to that, the singles ‘Sedam dana’ and ‘Da sam ja tvoja jedina’ became number 1 hits. Karma got full media attention. All this made another tour in Czech Republic possible.
The popularity crossed the borders of Poland and Italy; many Polish fans came to Czech Republic to see the band and the single ‘Hladnija od leda’ appeared in the Italian international chart.
The release of ‘Karma remixes’ in November 2003 was again a major success. Various well-known Croatian and Slovenian artists wanted the ‘Karma touch’ – which eventually was provided by Neno and Pipi. Together with Menart the boys compiled 14 remixes from acts as Colonia, Tony Cetinski, Ivana Banfic and many others. At the end of 2003 the band launched their new video for ‘Molitva’ and had commercials on MTV.
In 2004 Karma received two Slovakian awards: ‘Golden Otto award’ for best dance artist (provided by the magazine ‘Bravo’) and the ‘Kamaward’ for best artist in 2003 (by teen magazine ‘Kamarat’). In may 2004 the band went on tour through Slovakia.
In the same year Karma entered the final of the ‘Golden Stag Festival’, which took place under the attendance of Pink and Thomas Anders in Brasov, Romania. This was the first English performance of ‘Every time you leave’.
In August 2004 Karma released the album ‘Malo pomalo’. ‘Amore Mio’ and ‘Ti vise nemas prava’ were performed on different prestigious festivals (and received several awards) and so were already famous among their fans. Within one day the album went gold in Czech Republic and platinum in three weeks. Reason enough to release a ‘Platinum edition’ in November. ‘Malo pomalo’ was nr. 1 in CD sales chart in Slovenia for 6 weeks and nr. 3 in Croatia for one month.
In 2006 Karma released ‘Avantura’, another album which reached major successes in Czech Republic and Slovakia. This was also the first album to be released digitally, worldwide. Various remixes and some new hitsongs are included on the adventurous disc of Karma.
Thanks to all the successes in Czech Republic and Slovakia a ‘Best Of’ album will be released in late 2007. The tracklist is being decided by the fans.
At the moment, Karma is almost daily performing concerts across Croatia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Czech Republic.
All this success made the band hungry for further expansion through Europe and parts of Asia. There is good reason to believe that this could be one of the first authentical Croatian artistic products that achieved major international success.
Trusting their own quality and the amount of work invested in it sounds is the receipt for success.
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