Moonlee’s aesthetic can be traced back to the days after Yugoslavia lost its communist leader Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980 at age 87. Tito’s government helped clear the way for rock, deciding not to ban “the Western element” from everyday life in the 1940s. Unlike its neighbors behind the Iron Curtain, the Yugoslavia made it easier for bands to operate. Dalibor Mišina, a professor at Lakewood University in Ontario who specializes in the history of Yugoslav rock, says the mix of socialism and non-restricted travel made for a heady mixture. “Because of the open borders, people would bring records back and labels would get licenses to publish whatever they wanted. So people were fairly familiar with what was going on in the West.”

As rock took over worldwide, Yugoslav record plants churned out the latest foreign releases and the government funded concerts and recordings by local bands. In the late 70s, a thriving punk and new wave scene developed, which Mišina describes as an attempt to push the country toward socialist ideals. “Music became more engaged and critical,” Mišina said. “The aim was not to tear down the regime, it was basically a critique aimed at improving society.”

Following Tito’s death, rock played an important cultural role against those like Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, who were looking to fill the power vacuum by playing on ethnic divisions. Among acts like Električni Orgazam and Luna, Šarlo Akrobata emerged and splintered into Ekatarina Velika and the bass-heavy thrash of Disciplina Kičme. While their records didn’t circulate far outside the Federation, today many musicians from this generation play to adoring audiences at major festivals. “Rock music in the late 80s had an urban, progressive vibe to it, which wasn’t in line with the rise of nationalism,” Mišina said. “If you’re arguing for closing the borders, mistrusting neighbors, rock music was completely contrary to that.”

Serbian nationalists worked to drown it out. As Milošević looked to consolidate Yugoslavia’s power around Belgrade, Serbia’s version of “Turbo Folk” hit the airwaves with a more pointed agenda than the nationalistic folk already common across the region. The genre clumsily forced techno beats over folk instrumentation, and served as one of the propaganda tools highlighting Serb identity at a time when Milošević was looking to hold areas claimed by the new Croatian republic and Bosnia.

The conflict surrounding Yugoslavia’s 1991 breakup provoked the protests of rock musicians in Serbia and beyond, including attempts such as the specially formed group Rimtutituki performing anti-war songs from a truck roaming Belgrade after being denied a stage. “The rockers ‘went underground,’” Mišina said, bands played in spaces that “were minor and marginal compared to the spaces for Turbo Folk.”

Some left. Disciplina Kičme’s leader Dušan Kojić moved to London, where he continued making music; he returned to Serbia years later as a legend. Those who didn’t found ways to respond to the uncertainty, creating the blueprint the region’s bands still follow.

Daniel Kovač was a teenager in Belgrade just picking up the guitar in 1991. Turning away from what was on the radio, he began playing with his brother and other friends, looking to the underground for inspiration. “As soon as I learned some basic guitar, I started to write songs,” Kovač recalled “I used the subcultural possibilities and said, ‘Let’s try it.’”

Taking the name Jarboli (“Masts”), they found a niche following in Belgrade as Turbo Folk continued to dominate. Alongside a crop of bands that emerged after the 1995 Dayton Agreement that temporarily stalled the violence such as Veliki Prezir (“Great Contempt”), Jarboli became popular enough to get a record contract with alternative — and anti- Milošević — radio station B92.

Peace didn’t last, and NATO forces targeted Milošević’s government. On March 24, 1999 Jarboli may have had the worst CD-release show ever, waiting out the first wave of NATO planes bombing Belgrade in a basement. Milošević’s government used the state of war as a chance to take over B92’s headquarters, where the CDs was stored. “Later, you could buy them at flea markets,” Kovač said, “because someone just took them and sold them.”

Jarboli pressed on, repackaging some of those songs with what became the anthem, “Samo Ponekad” (“Only Sometimes”). The song responds to the chaos of the era with ennui instead of rage.

“We lost time, we lost media attention, but we gained some other skills,” Kovač said of the period. “We endured the problems and we continued to work. We became more like a cult band.”

By the mid-2000s, younger musicians were following Jarboli’s example, organizing their own concerts and releasing their own records. As groups coalesced around what became known as the New Serbian Scene, a teenaged trio dubbed Repetitor stood out.

Their start came like that of many great punk bands — picking up instruments they barely knew how to play and playing with abandon. Drummer Milena Milutinović had three lessons; guitarist Boris Vlastelica didn’t bother at all. Bassist Ana-Marija Cupin saw them perform with another bassist early on. “They played the Ramones and some of their own songs, but the bass player was kind of bad and not interested in coming to rehearsals. So Boris asked me to play [bass] when he saw me at a party.” She had never played before.

Repetitor released their new album on October 18.

Ten years later, they are among the region’s most popular underground bands with the release of their new LP, “Gde ćeš” (“Where Will You Go?”). Before their rise, Jarboli were early fans, and guitarist Boris Mladenović recorded their first album in 2009. Kovač’s praise has only grown over the past decade, watching as they become a ferocious live act. “Put any really popular band on stage after Repetitor, and you’d find them really cheesy.”

Rusjan heard them perform twice, two years apart. Having been lukewarm on them the first time, he was awestruck when they came to Ljubljana and “smashed the stage. I said, I have to work with that band.”

Repetitor signed to Moonlee. “We were slightly paranoid at first,” Milutinović says of Rusjan. “But he turned out to be really good.”