On May 19, Bosnian singer and composer Damir Imamović will release his first album on Smithsonian Folkways, The World and All That It Holds. Produced by the renowned Joe Boyd (Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, Pink Floyd) and Balkan music expert Andrea Goertler and recorded by Grammy-winning engineer Jerry Boys in Sarajevo, the album draws from and expands upon the traditional Bosnian style of sevdah while serving as a companion to Aleksandar Hemon’s new novel of the same name. In Hemon’s highly acclaimed novel, which the Washington Post called “brilliant” and Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell dubbed a “masterpiece,” the two protagonists, propelled far from Sarajevo by the Great War, sing to each other to express their love and longing for home. Imamović’s album, at times exuberant and at times mournful, soundtracks their story.