Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Dom Španskih borcev / Slovenia
Concert date: 24.03.2011
Attendance: 80
Ticket price: €2.00 (high school students, university students, people with disabilities), €4.00 (everyone else)
MakFest 2011 – a festival of youth altruistic culture! Yep, such things still exist! It’s hard to believe these days, when all that counts is how thick your wallet is and moral principles have been a total stranger for ages. A week-long educational event that helps information, experience and knowledge flow to young, hungry talents, with veterans, sages and mentors pitching in, selflessly steering the development of young creative geniuses who will one day carry the cultural and artistic pulse of the Republic of Slovenia.
Since RockLine is, of course, first and foremost a music medium, part of our crew focused on following the live music happening at this year’s MakFest! One of the festival’s main attractions was surely the debut gig of a new jazz fusion rock outfit with the telling name Ojdip and the Mothers. The name takes its cue from the figure and work of the legendary musical genius and multi-visionary Frank Zappa, while the word Ojdip all on its own conjures up associations with the unusual, the different, the provocative…
Ojdip and the Mothers were given the job of setting to music the poems presented that day at the literary evening by young, up-and-coming high school and university students. That gave the poetry a whole new dimension, the one dictated by four musicians encoding it and translating it into the language of music. The language of a one-of-a-kind moment that never comes back.
So, welcome to musical recitals. If we look back at the legacy of jazz rock fusion, we know it’s an approach to music that breathes with a free-spirited, adventurous, untamed mindset, sucking in air with sails fully billowing as it challenges its own limits. And what drives it is unshakable curiosity, forever chasing new and newer dimensions of the magic of a one-time phenomenon. Music.
Tine Kolenik (guitar), Sonca Menart (vocals), Blaž Cotman (bass guitar) and Jure Matoh (drums) set several literary pieces to music and served up a more than juicy backdrop that lifted the interpretation of the poetry to a new level of artistic expression. Over the course of the evening’s individual acts, we witnessed the wonderfully tasty playfulness of a dynamic, vivid and richly branching rhythm line, which, with occasional doses of “funk groove” acting like a spring mattress, communicated brilliantly with the performers of the literary works. The main carrier of the melody was of course the guitar of the budding music enthusiast Tine Kolenik, who, with a handful of well-crafted motifs, more than successfully brought across the core message of each individual’s poetry and put the cherry on top with his own jazz rock experimental flourishes.
The band played three of the pieces entirely on their own. Sonca lent her voice to the first two, while Tine, guitar in hand, led the last recital, which is his own creation. What was fascinating, considering his youth and what was really a debut under the spotlights in front of a full audience, was the guitarist’s incredible confidence, with which he several times, charmingly and with the ease of a seasoned tomcat, smashed the imaginary barrier between audience and band; and that of course goes for the whole lineup.
No easy task, generally speaking! Especially for a debut gig. And yet immensely tempting for a group like Ojdip and the Mothers! The band took on setting the recitals to music as a challenge. It fits the core philosophy this quartet cultivates in how it delivers its own musical heritage and originality. And that is, first and foremost, free-spirited exploration of your own creative reach, discovering your own talents and so searching for a unique musical character, which, with this historic first stage incarnation for the group, has climbed a big step up in gaining experience and in building and strengthening the group’s artistic charisma.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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