Location: Tolmin / Kinogledališče / Slovenia
Date: Friday, 25 October 2019
Bakalina Velika with their superb new album »Prvi krajec« and a live show in Tolmin — this is not something you miss. A packed-out Tolmin Kinogledališče hinted that Bakalina Velika are simply at home here. The crew led by the creative spirit of the Kutin brothers’ Čadrg connection, which grew from a »small« Bakalina into a seven-piece for the new album, has with their latest studio venture genuinely expanded their artistic and creative reach — and pushed their already-established eclecticism to a new (higher) artistic level.
The original Bakalina duo — initially just Jani Kutin and Renata Lapanja — has since welcomed Jani’s brother Samo (bass guitar, acoustic guitar, balafon, brač, hurdy-gurdy, bass harp, n’goni, percussion), drummer and percussionist Marjan Stanič, his Vasko Atanasovski Trio bandmate Dejan Lapanja (drums, acoustic guitar, bass guitar), the refined Feedback guitarist and all-round one of Slovenia’s best-kept guitar secrets and revelations, Matej Magajne (also bass guitar), and Italian musician Andrea Pandolfo, who handles wind instruments (trumpet, flugelhorn) and piano, while making no secret of his classical training.
At the show too, the band members came across as nimble and daring multi-instrumentalists, while Jani — in addition to vocals — handled the special effects (using recordings) and also picked up the flute.
The band played the entire new album »Prvi krajec« from start to finish, bewitching a packed-out venue where seats had long since run out and latecomers made do with the free-standing stairways at both ends of the hall. Unlike the completely sold-out theatre in Cormons, where just the day before we had caught a show by the legendary jazz-rock fusion guru John McLaughlin, the situation at the Tolmin Kinogledališče maintained sobriety, composure and complete control over what was otherwise a boiling point (a fully sold-out venue). In Cormons, that same situation had completely slipped through the Italian colleagues’ fingers, and so we witnessed (once again) the classic »system meltdown« in the Italian manner (something similar happened before the King Crimson show this year in Palmanova). You know the drill: tickets suddenly run out, seat allocations double-book themselves, and in the end every terminal in the logistics chain gives up the ghost. Lucky for us we’re not Italian — but you’ll be able to read all about it in the dedicated McLaughlin review coming shortly.
So, back to Tolmin! You can feel that the members of Bakalina Velika in their current line-up have known each other for a long time, that they’ve played together in various configurations before, that sonic and stylistic adventurism — cross-bred with folk elements that sprawl into the fields of world music, jazz, punk, classical, and blues — suits them down to the ground, and above all that everything embodying the artistry of this septet today is in fact a vivid mosaic of the music of the bands these members still play in, come from, or once shared a stage in together (Širom, Salamadndra salmandra, Feedback, D’Štrudls, Vasko Atanasovski Trio,….).
The band played — performed — with extraordinary intensity and laser focus. Jani again enchanted with a gorgeous vocal delivered in the Čadrg dialect, which gives the band’s expression a singular allure and heightens the sense of mysticism that occasionally sparks through the performance of their repertoire. Powerful lyrics that call you to wake up. Their message is priceless, carrying a strong rousing quality — a kind of hymn to reality and to awareness, calling for respect for our ancestors’ wisdom and for the good, positive, long-forgotten energies of the old faith. It upholds the principles of plain common sense: among others, the rule that you take only as much as you need — never, ever more — and that you always take in a way that leaves enough for those who come after you. But to be able to take, you must first give something in return and commit wholeheartedly to that kind of coexistence. The logic of inner enrichment, of personal, spiritual and emotional growth — »dangerous« to the exhausted existence of humanity’s 2,000-year-old guiding principles, yet the only healthy logic on which the very possibility of humanity’s long-term survival on this planet is founded — one we need to turn toward right now (if not sooner).
Emotions run high — a web of extraordinary musicality threaded through with glimpses of melancholy, longing, and reverence for nature and natural phenomena. Alongside tender, delicate harmonies, the band could also hit incredibly hard. Samo occasionally treated himself to a distorted bass guitar sound; Dejan didn’t hold back from lightning-fast runs of fifths on the bass guitar. More than once, Renate’s gentle accordion drew the short straw in the sound mix — yet it remains one of the core elements of the band’s recognizable sound. Magajne and Pandolfo coloured the space and contrasts of the sonic backdrop brilliantly, expanding the show with sparkling solos. Samo Kutin kept leaping from one instrument to another across his exotic collection, painting colour into the arrangements. Marjan Stanič and Dejan swapped places on the drums, even treating the crowd to a drumming duel — a doubling of rhythmic textures — drawing out a »special kind« of mantra, full of vibrant energy, and there was no shortage of percussive pounding to make this kind of show such a joy.
The audience greeted each number with enthusiasm. In the second half, Bogdana Herman appeared on stage. After her moving account of the last phone call with Feo Volarič, she delivered an a cappella version of Oj, božime (this was, it turned out, Feo’s last wish — that she sing it to him over the phone), and then stayed on stage for the closing track of the new album, Človek in luna. In the final stretch of the show, after the searingly definitive Zadnji sprehod, the band also played Ka se je dielu sviet from the previous album — the track about which, prophetically, we had noted at the time of its official release that it laid the groundwork for a possible expansion of Bakalina’s expressive artistry (which »Prvi krajec« later duly confirmed). For the obligatory encore, the band played Starga tatu karajne, taken from their debut studio record »Pakašnca«, incidentally reminding everyone that a fast first ten years had passed since its release — and delivered it in the full essence of the current line-up.
A concert of exceptional qualities, as one might quietly have expected. A concert that leaves you with powerful, intense feelings — and one that, even after it ends, holds you in a state of rapt absorption, caught in the creation of a singular world generated by the band’s eclecticism. Bakalina Velika are simply a band you have to experience live at least once. Just once. The first chance to do that — at least for those in the Ljubljana end of Slovenia — comes on 19 November 2019, when the crew plays Cankarjev dom. And for St. Nicholas Day, for everyone from the Tolmin area who didn’t manage to get their tickets in time for the October Tolmin show, Bakalina Velika have confirmed one more additional, »consolation«, performance.
“The birth of complete expressive authenticity and the supreme musical embodiment of magic!”
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist:
1. Čudežn sviet
2. Mlada piesm
3. Žlied
4. Sajne
5. Biele Wade
6. Sviet Krn
7. Človek in Luna
8. Zadnji sprehod
9. Ka se je dielu sviet
—encore—
10. Starga tatu karajne
