Label: Čadrg Records
Release date: 17.05.2019
Production: Dejan Lapanja
Album length: 47.25 min
Genre: Ethno / Art Folk
It was only a matter of time, and exactly what the writer of these humble lines mused about while getting to know the album “Španabije” has come to pass, something the album’s final track Ko se je dielu sviet already hinted at. Jani Kutin and Renata Lapanja, as the duo Bakalina, are growing into a proper band, and with their debut “Prvi krajec” they’re setting a new musical story down on our turf. Bakalina Velika. From a duo to a septet, then.
Alongside Renata Lapanja, Bakalina Velika now count four members of the cult North Primorska outfit Salamandra salamandra: besides Jani, there’s his brother Samo (Širom), plus Matej Magajne (Feedback, Poltrona Express) and Dejan Lapanja (Vasko Atanasovski Trio). The other two players rounding out the septet are trumpeter and horn player Andrea Pandolfo, who worked with Bakalina on “Španabije”, and percussionist and drummer Marjan Stanič, who comes from Vasko Atanasovski Trio together with Dejan Lapanja. In short, a package of exceptional musicians with no hide-and-seek games between them, and with a vast sea of expressive insight, fiery sparkle, flexible give-and-take, broad understanding and mutual tolerance. All of which adds up to a huge expressive range, and with “Prvi krajec” it has surely delivered an absolute musical one-off into our midst.
So the core of the septet knows each other very well. And has for a long time. The chemistry they build, so effective, so special and in fact so all-pervasively dominant, hardly comes as a surprise. Jani wrote all the lyrics for the album. Once again he sings in “pure-bred” Čadrg dialect. This time his poetry leans on the bond between nature and humankind. If “Španabije” was also socially critical, the main guiding thread of “Prvi krajec” is nature and our connection to it. Jani and Samo already showed a deep tie to nature, though in a much more naive way, in their teenage punk rock band D’Štrudls. Everything “Prvi krajec” has to offer is really the sum total of their artistic maturing since.
Once again the band wanted to capture the whole message of the new album on tape as authentically as possible. So the album was recorded in Čadrg, in winter, which is also hinted at by the nature of the poetry, or rather its message. In one take (in one take), as analog as it gets. The album feels pastoral, retro-nostalgic and brings back to life a world that’s vanishing before our eyes, the eyes of the “Ljubljana shirt”, if you catch my drift. It feels like a lost tribal ritual, born in the bosom of nature, which gave humans life. A ritual of thanks to Mother Nature.
A thoroughly Native American hymn of praise to creation. To nature. To the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, the wind, the water, the creatures,…. With no outside nudges, or “disturbers”, coming from “civilization” (the “Kingdom of the Orcs”). A purism of exceptional fusion of ethno and folk with progressive rock elements, culminating in a special art folk album that speaks in a unique, entirely natural (organic) and timeless voice.
When we talked about the septet’s great give-and-take of ideas in building the compositions, it has to be stressed that the mutual awareness within this company is extraordinary. The musical landscape Bakalina Velika create is vivid, constantly and powerfully inviting, exciting and magical. Throughout, we witness an exceptionally bold and balanced integration of diverse accompanying sounds, which speak to you totally unpretentiously and in the glow of great organic flexibility and warmth. At the center is Jani’s voice, which has an extremely pleasant tone, and his vocal melody often comes close, within the meter, to straight-up narration. Singing in dialect proves to be the genius and only right move, also in that the payoff of the vocal melody is far greater than it would be in proper standard Slovenian. Not only does it deepen the reach of this authentic one-of-a-kind album, born beneath the peaks of Tolmin, and add to the eclecticism of the record, it’s simply more musical than standard Slovenian. Add to that the sensuality, all the instincts of the primal, the passion, the emotion, which grab you in the delivery, theatrical and melancholic, nostalgic and solemn, all conjured up by the one and only Jani Kutin.
It’s not all about Jani, not by a long shot. Bakalina Velika is seven members. The subtle Dejan Lapanja, who has shown off his big talents as a multi-instrumentalist (especially guitarist), producer and arranger in various musical challenges before, remains brilliantly lucid and sharp with ideas. Samo Kutin brings the much-needed sonic exotica from the vastness of Širom, which lends this record a particular expressive power and touch; then there’s of course the obligatory stamp of Renata’s accordion, a little less noticeable than it was with the duo Bakalina, plus the deeply melancholic wind instruments (trumpet, horn) of Andrea Pandolfo and the (big) guitar of Matej Magajne.
The third track, Žlied, is surely one of the most interesting. The band picked a very elementary harmony as the lead phrase, but you can squeeze an extraordinary musical payoff out of it. That holds every time one of the instruments breaks into a solo, too. Žlied, which carries a tribal, almost Balkan rhythm, is about exactly what the word in the title means: the ice storm that gripped Slovenia in February 2014. “When the forest wept” and “a piece of the world broke off”. A track that literally sends a chill through the listener as it paints the feel of ice, the live cracking of wood and the crashing of fallen trunks that filled the hollows and narrow gorges of the torrent canyons back then. From the Breginj corner right into the heart of Slovenia and on to the south and east. The images are still vivid as hell, and Žlied is an outstanding ritual in memory of the event. An extremely important element, amid all the tribalism of the song, is Andrea Pandolfo’s improvised wind playing. In the extended instrumental outro you can also hear a real recording of the ice storm, just as the track is almost going into an imaginary fade out. A track where you literally freeze and go stiff. The percussion and the stripped-down drum passages of Marjan Stanič add their bit in the outro too. Percussion and drums flood the track and carry the drama theater in the song to a true ultimate crescendo! An unbelievable track, and I dare say surely the peak of “Prvi krajec”.
In the seventh track, Človek in luna, Matej is the driving force of the song’s development in the second half and gives it a distinctive bluesy stamp as he adds a masterful solo, where you can feel the remarkable rhetoric of the great organic, sun-soaked purism of this unique guitarist, one of the biggest oddballs among Slovenian guitarists, who has no equal. Magajne is a great perfectionist and a sonic purist, and the exceptional sense of aesthetics with which this guitarist approaches shaping a solo is absolutely not to be overlooked! Matej Magajne’s bluesy intro is followed by a superb “discussion circle” between the human (Jani) and the Moon (Bogdana Herman). Alongside Žlied, Človek in luna is one of the most interesting tracks on this album. Jani’s powerful lyricism, which touches on spirituality, works as a wake-up call, and if you really make sense of it, it will take you straight back to where you came from! Back to nature! The vivid and rich weave of the septet’s accompanying craft especially sparkles here, from the percussion that strengthens the rhythmic reach, to the shimmers of accordion and piano, to the colorful darts of guitar. All of it delicately done and executed so that it doesn’t take attention away from the vocal interpretation for even a moment.
The fragility of the next track, Mlada piesem, is driven, beside Jani’s gentle vocal softness, by especially mellifluous guitar and piano in a symbiosis of exceptional perceptive interplay, in which charm and the magic of mysticism are born. The cave world gets its tribute in the track Biele wade. Again an Arabic rhythm, even southern melos. Beetle collectors must not find it! Sviet Krn, a prayer to the mighty giant Krn to grant good fortune, takes the listener far into the bosom of paganism! The transitional acoustic guitar passage is gorgeous, working as a light yet hugely atmospheric glue between the verses! The first track, Čudežn sviet, feels like a birth, where the wonder at the fantastic creations of Mother Nature seems to have no end, while Zadnji sprehod, the closing point, is a kind of requiem in which the circle of life closes and there’s more spirituality in the poetry again. At this point the band used recordings of wild animal calls, which carry your body through the last ritual (the ritual of death) into a new birth. Both tracks are also the beginning and end of a great ode, or hymn of praise, to Mother Nature, which is how we can understand the album “Prvi krajec”. Verses of great awakening, great awareness, great reconciliation with the world, offer a constantly strong touch of spirituality, a linking of feelings and primal instincts, beyond the rational, logistical empiricism we’re so faithfully devoted to and because of which the other levels of our communication with the world suffer and wither.
Welcome to the vivid, one-of-a-kind, timeless and utterly unique mantra of seven wonderful bards, who will move you, wake you and stir you up when you meet them together on the night of “Prvi krajec”. So you can explore the full virginity of your soul’s mission, so you can find yourself as you feel and find again your own beauty and the beauty of the world around you. In a word, unconditional Love.
“Prvi krajec” is one of the strongest releases to come out this year. Broadly speaking. It’s one of the most beautiful creations, when it comes to reaching timelessness and expressive breadth, that Slovenian music has ever produced. It doesn’t get more Slovenian than this, just as it doesn’t get higher than ten points out of a possible ten in this review’s rating. When poetry and music “click” perfectly together and a brilliant achievement is born, one that bends under the weight of its eclecticism and uniqueness!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 10 / 10
Track list:
1. Čudežn sviet
2. Mlada piesem
3. Žlied
4. Sajne
5. Biele wade
6. Sviet Krn
7. Človek in luna
8. Zadnji sprehod
Musicians:
Jani Kutin – vocals, whistle, goat horn
Renata Lapanja – accordion
Marjan Stanič – percussion, drums
Matej Magajne – electric guitar, bass guitar
Andrea Pandolfo – trumpet, flugelhorn, piano
Dejan Lapanja – drums, acoustic guitar, bass guitar
Samo Kutin – bass guitar, acoustic guitar, balafon, brač, hurdy gurdy, bass harp, n’goni, sound objects, ice storm recording
Guest musicians:
Bogdana Herman – vocals
Dr. Tomi Trilar – Slovenian Museum of Natural History: recordings of animals from Slovenian forests (black woodpecker, raven, tawny owl, deer, chamois, wolf)
