Artist: Kovač, Tinkara
Label: Dallas Records
Release date: 10.09.2012
Length: 39:58
Rating: 4/5
These days, nobody should expect earth-shattering, heavenly-revelation news from Tinkara Kovač. She’s a respected musician who, with her stage presence and her own musical message, has long since fought for her place on the Slovenian mainstream scene and thoroughly cemented her status and reputation.
Tinkara has always worked with excellent musicians and sound engineers, in other words proven names. In various combinations. Either as session players hired for the studio, or as part of her live backing lineups. The name Iztok Turk is no stranger here! This time the former Videosex member played (together with Tinkara) a key role in shaping the arrangements of these reworked evergreens! Among them even songs from the golden musical legacy of the great creativity that once ruled the territory of the late Yugoslavia – shaped by some truly unique musical geniuses of their place and time. »Rastemo« is, in return for the inspiration, a kind of personal tribute from Tinkara to these masters of music.
A set of eleven subtly re-arranged songs, poured into the expressive musical language of Tinkara Kovač, comes across as her new studio album, even though it isn’t one. The opening trio alone (Benč Kocjančič’s) Senca, Čolnič (a cover of the Videosex original Čolnič imam) and Benč’s Gvendolina takes the listener to a surprising realization: these are essentially covers of evergreens, yet they sound so freshly restructured that they could have been born from Tinkara Kovač’s own songwriting. And that’s the whole point of doing it right! The label “cover” only gets its real meaning and value when it sounds stylistically very close to the recognizable artistry of the performer who decided to record the chosen song. Play the original in your own authorial clothes, and so add a new value that hasn’t yet been defined in the musical space. That’s exactly why »Rastemo« is a special album, one that only Tinkara Kovač can pull off and nobody else.
Few Slovenian musicians take the approach Tinkara Kovač has chosen. With the exception of one single band. The great Laibach, who are a chapter of their own. The doggedly spot-on Lovšin number Samo poljub mi dej, in Tinkara Kovač’s shoes, sounds infectiously pop-dance flavored, with a melodic accent in the chorus that even breathes a few trademarks of Slovenian folk. The fun detour of the album. This song, like a hefty bunch of the others, carries a touch of experimenting with programmed electronic patterns and the use of synthesizers, for which Iztok Turk is certainly not the least responsible in the arrangements. That sentiment, clinging to songs equipped like this, takes us straight to the mid-eighties, and there are sensible parallels to be drawn, among other things, with the elemental sound of Videosex (and here we are at Iztok Turk again). All of that only up to a point, though, because we have to take one very important difference into account. The new production, for new times, is of course a chapter of its own on »Rastemo«. The sonic picture is used to its full potential here. Rich, fully exploited, and, for all the occasionally crafty manipulation of electronic sounds, still organic and natural! It needs pointing out that Tinkara is a »rocker«. An occasional punk flicker, which you can feel but which never takes the lead on »Rastemo«, can even be sensed in Bajaga’s Ti se ljubiš, where Tinkara, in neatly placed Slovenian-adapted verses, manages to hold on to a catchy combination of pop rhetoric and a hard-rock-ruffled guitar phrase.
»Flowers« (a nod to the bouquet of highlights) are all over this album and they delight, and among them I’d single out the Jethro Tull-flavored element of the acoustic-sounding Je to res, with its excellent mix of folk guitar arrangements and flute inserts. »Je to res« is actually a cover of Ljudi nije fer, which in the original belongs to the ex-Yu prog rockers Smak. Tinkara manages to keep all her expressive credibility across the whole album! Even when you fight your way to »Nič novega pod mesecem« (orig. Jani Kovačič). On this song, the addition of a women’s choir brings a new, special mood that feels blessed and solemn, while carrying a touch of melancholic longing and mysticism, and in that sense a mild shade of Slovenian musical folk.
The basic source of the album’s tight-knit diversity is the elemental stylistic gulf between the artists who got re-arranged for it. With her vocal performance of relived sensuality and sparkling additions of lively, playful flute – and you can’t deny the sensible similarities to the approach of the great guru of this business Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) – Tinkara breathes tangible substance into the songs of »Rastemo«, a substance that comes from her own self-made stance, great self-confidence and courage, and above all from great love, showing Tinkara’s deep respect for the music of the chosen artists! »Rastemo« lives up to its title in every way. It has a clear vision, and that’s why it fully convinces!
Flirting with electronics gives Tinkara a new qualitative component in her musical vocabulary, one we haven’t gotten in such a direct dose on her records so far. It will be interesting to see what her upcoming solo studio album brings in this regard, and how far Tinkara will still dare to challenge her creative musical talent, and perhaps carry it to a new developmental level of her artistic being and further maturing.
Lineup
Tinkara Kovač – vocals, flute
Iztok Turk – programming, keyboards
TINKARA KOVAČ BAND:
Marko Stropnik – guitar
Mare Verbič – guitar
Denis Scher – bass guitar
Dorian Granda – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Slavko Avsenik ml. – strings, piano on track no. 1
Pero Lovšin – vocals on track no. 5
Peter Dekleva – guitar on track no. 5
Gal Hartman – transcription on track no. 6.
Žak – vocals on track no. 8.
Boris Benčič – kolnica and French horn on track no. 10
Women’s choir »Kombinat« on track no. 11
Production
Iztok Turk
Track list
- Senca
- Čolnič
- Gvendolina
- Krokodili Prihajajo
- En Majhen Poljub
- Rastemo
- Ti Se Ljubiš
- Je To Res
- Počasen Ogenj
- Plima
- Nič Novega Pod Mesecem
