Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: džeZZva
Label: Self-released
Release: 2018
Duration: 58:15
Rating: 5/5
»Sintur« is the third album from Murska Sobota outfit džeZZva and their second proper studio record. The years slip by quietly, and almost four have passed since the release of the fearlessly bold debut »džeZZva« (2014), with which these worthy Prekmurje natives firmly and clearly staked out their musical dossier and convinced the home crowd, and the foreign one too, that this is an exceptionally high-quality band with no shortage of creative quirks. If Tolmin has Feedback, Idrija has Divje Jezero and Ljubljana has Moonlight Sky, then Murska Sobota has džeZZva. Four musical worlds of virtuoso experimentation and four totally different musical stories, in which music gourmets can quickly find common denominators and just as quickly make the music of all four their own.
The džeZZva quartet is seriously experienced. Dejan Berden, the band’s mastermind, has tried his hand at writing music across a colorful palette of genres over his career. He has put out a dozen albums, both his own and ones made in collaboration with plenty of prominent names on the local music scene. He’s an incredibly prolific composer and all-round musician who, to this day, remains one of the best-guarded secrets of the Slovenian music scene. We profiled Berden in more detail in our review of his studio album »Fluid«. »Sintur« follows Berden’s freedom-loving musical »adventurism« and is an album on which džeZZva serve up a few musical moves they haven’t tried before. Don’t get me wrong. The premise of tradition is stressed on the new album too, above all because of the generous presence of Dejan Berden’s piano, the old-world resonance of Mojmir Wolf’s double bass, and the way the melodic heritage of the Prekmurje plains keeps sneaking into the motifs. They don’t force it in there, it simply pulls them that way, which is no surprise given that they grew up on Prekmurje soil.
džeZZva throw themselves into the content of »Sintur« with ambition and total zeal. They open it with a punch, with the solid motif of the opening Sintur, but the album then gets thoroughly loosened up, fusion-style, by the mini suite Sedem. It’s an ambitiously arranged composition running over twelve minutes, packed with motivic upheavals, unexpected turns and mood switches. It’s on this track that džeZZva conjure up that veil of mysticism most noticeably for the first time, especially in the parts where Iztok Rodež, in the background of Berden’s piano feats, subtly »colors« things with collages of guitar »soundscapes«. džeZZva play with great pleasure and you can feel it at every step of the new album’s essence. It’s incredibly heartfelt and unbelievably honest.
The first half of the album gets properly »tangled up« in the track Svobodno čez obzorje. The dialogue of cheeky improvisations running through the album, led mainly by Iztok and Dejan, reaches its peak right in this song. It’s one hell of a band jam that leaves the listener no room to breathe. Balldar, and Zimske misli after it, are cleverly placed in the middle of »Sintur« and ease off the adventurism of the jazz-rock fusion of the first four tracks. The two songs are more compactly arranged, the expression takes on an art-rock character with outlines of progressive rock, and the band shows remarkable sensitivity in how the musicians read each other, plus great filigree brilliance in the performance itself. džeZZva crank up their subtlety in Zimske misli. It’s a tender, fragile piece whose grace connects nicely to the »awakening« character of Spring from the debut album. džeZZva flirted with one more novelty on »Sintur«. They wrote a vocal song. But the vocal seeks out thoroughly unconventional musical lines that pleasantly surprise the listener and »tease« with their oddness. With the exceptionally lovely and almost maidenlike approach of vocalist Lina Rahne, Preplet delivers one of the album’s most striking compositional departures, and the mysticism of the Prekmurje plains comes virtuously back to life in this track again. In this song džeZZva set the poetry of poet Milan Vincetič to music. The reworking of the folk song Ne orji, ne sejaj later on the album is so adventurously and jazz-rock-fusion loosened up that you can barely »catch« its main motif in passing, and on the album it works much like one of its best tracks, the already mentioned mini epic suite Sedem. Toward the end, in their version of Ne orji, ne sejaj, džeZZva once again completely »blow up« with solos. And at the end of the album, the closing Bruzel has a similar effect to the opening Sintur. It delivers just the right dose of mischief and motivic compactness at once, and effectively keeps the listener glued to it right until the album’s final moments. The closing Bruzel stands on an »off the wall« rhythmic key and slips arabesques into the melody itself. With its interesting structure and development, it gets the listener ready to spin the album all over again in the player. »Sintur« gives you the overall feeling that džeZZva are even bolder and braver in realizing their ideas than on the debut album.
»Expect the unexpected«. »Sintur« will enchant you, just as džeZZva enchanted us with their debut album in 2014. But »Sintur« is a different album, one that keeps the band’s signature boldness of adventurous, exploratory jazz, with uniquely and totally unpretentious touches of melody from the Prekmurje region, which »color« the songs by chance and spontaneity rather than džeZZva concisely forcing that tradition on the listener. Like the studio debut, »Sintur« is an album played with a huge dose of fun. With an extraordinary measure of insight and fresh ideas. With devilish dynamite in the fingers and great fire. It speaks in a relaxed way and in the spirit of honest truthfulness that neither knows nor accepts any boundaries of expression. In other words, it pours their inner creative genius into a unique musical language. »Sintur« deepens the singular musical dossier of this magnificent and utterly fascinating band!
»Sintur« is an album that speaks to you with great allure. If you enjoy musical oddness that boldly marries tradition with experimental adventurism, »Sintur« will thrill you from start to finish. It grabs slowly. On the first spin it mostly shocks, and it even feels more experimental than the studio debut. With further spins, though, you music gourmets will take the album as your own, since you’ll be peeling back all the details of its rich musical message little by little. Veil by veil. An excellent achievement, and already now I can say without mincing words that it’s one of the highlights of this year’s releases in the Slovenian music universe when it comes to good jazz. With »Sintur«, the band will once again leap very effectively onto the concert stages of international scenes. A record, then, they can be hugely proud of, and let’s hope džeZZva will play it from start to finish at upcoming shows. In its entirety, that is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_WuQraKJkE
Line-up
Dejan Berden – piano
Iztok Rodež – guitar
Mojmir Wolf – double bass
Miran Celec – drums, percussion
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Lina Rahne – vocals on track no. 7
Production
Dejan Berden
Tracklist
1.Sintur
2. Sedem
3. Tink
4. Svobodno čez obzorje
5. Balldar
6. Zimske misli
7. Preplet
8. Ne orji, ne sejaj
10. Bruzel
