Artist: Divje Jezero
Label: DivjeJezero Records
Release: 2009
Rating: 3/5
The start of 2008 saw yet another band devoted to genre fusion come into the world in Idrija: Divje jezero. This trio of up-and-coming musicians has stuck to instrumental music, and what you mostly get is a mix of jazz and rock, with plenty of funk, reggae and blues thrown in, though, as they put it themselves, they don’t worry about genres and don’t let them box them in. In March 2009 they recorded a debut that lays out their musical vision pretty clearly. Recently the band was joined by a keyboardist, who will surely add yet another dimension to the group and the way they express themselves musically.
The debut has eight tracks, two of them covers, played through a jazz-rock fusion lens. You can hear plenty of influences on the album, from jazz masters (Billy Cobham) as well as progressive and classic rockers (Rush, Yes). There’s no point arguing about whether the first or the second camp weighs more, though it’s true that the album has a slightly more rock-leaning “finish”. You feel that right from the opener “2D”, where the heavier shades dominate, so the track would sooner land in progressive rock than jazz fusion. “Big Foot”, the follow-up to the two-dimensional track, again goes for a rock approach, but it’s still full of “grooving” and jazzy guitar inserts. “Kapljica” steps away a bit from the “sameness” of the previous tracks, since it’s a bit slower, more melodic and cleaner than what came before, and it doesn’t hide behind a distorted sound. The beginning is even a little Zorn-like, if you listen to his album “The Dreamers” or “O’o”. “Kobilca” likewise moves closer to jazz standards, especially with its fitting ambient playing, even though the guitar still “burns” through rock licks. There are still parts that repeat too often and so wear thin after a few listens. Next comes a cover of two cult cartoon themes under the title “Rozina”, a medley of Pink Panther and The Addams Family. The interesting shift from one melody to the other and the jazz-rock flavor show an excellent interpretive ability in the arrangement. “Mejour” slides back into the mediocrity of the first two tracks, where rock simplicity once again wins out over jazz complexity. “Groove” is remarkably similar to the earlier tracks, and the distortion and individual guitar bits sadly aren’t anything special, so “Mejour” gets lost in a pile of copies. All the more, then, “Šnita kruha” is a pleasant surprise that breaks the monotony and presents itself as a real jazz fusion track, since it’s fuller of creativity and bright ideas than its predecessors. An outstanding jazzy intro turns into an ethno track that blends wonderfully with the guitar distortion. This time the musicians truly grasped the idea of fusion, and the result is the musical high point of the record. The closing composition, “Jean Pierre”, the second cover, takes a rock’n’roll spin on Miles Davis’s original of the same name, with hints of country and “spacy” guitar effects along the way, adding yet another interesting interpretation.
“All in all”, as they say across the pond, this is more than a decent debut. The band is still looking for its sound, and for now it may also be short on creativity and ideas. The songs are fairly similar to one another, and there are too many repeated “riffs” and patterns across the tracks. They do serve up some surprises, mainly “Šnita kruha” and the cover of “Jean Pierre”, but the trio has definitely not reached its potential yet. Maybe the new keyboardist will add some variety, and either way it’ll be interesting to follow the next steps of the lake’s wild bunch… of Divje jezero.
Lineup
Aleš Golja – electric guitar
Alen Bogataj – bass guitar
Luka Čibej – drums, percussion
Production
Divje jezero
Tracklist
1. 2D
2. Big Foot
3. Kapljica
4. Kobilca
5. Rozina
6. Mejour
7. Šnita kruha
8. Jean Pierre
