Label: Jazz Cerkno Records
Release date: December 27, 2019
Production: Koromač & Jazz Cerkno Records
Album length: 46.14 min
Genre: Jazz HC/Rock Fusion
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At the end of December 2019, Koromač dropped their new studio album, »Kontrapunk«. After a good three years since its predecessor »Punk Enough?«, they’re back with a fresh musical manifesto. And for the occasion, they’ve grown from a sextet into a nonet. What occasion, you ask? The band celebrated its 10th anniversary by recording the new album live, on May 17, 2019, at their show at last year’s 24th edition of the Jazz Cerkno festival. The concert ran longer, but Koromač devoted the bulk of the set to completely new material, playing five brand-new pieces, which adds up to a good three quarters of an hour of fresh original music. So everything we hear on »Kontrapunk« is live, even though the crowd’s cheering has been carefully trimmed away, as the “empty” pauses between tracks give away. In other words, a new studio album played on stage, in one go, with no fixes and no polish after the fact. The previous studio album »Punk Enough?« was recorded live too. Few bands dare to do that. But if your lineup is full of people who love adventure in music, who are constantly drawn to the unusual, who can turn even every spontaneous “screw-up” to their advantage, and who never hold back when experimenting, then there’s nothing left to do but record live. That was, for instance, the “usual mantra” of the great Frank Zappa, and plenty of people do it today, especially in the free-spirited exploration of musical dimensions that jazz brings.
In their new shape, Koromač have decisively beefed up the wind section: the alto sax is now joined by a trumpet, a baritone and a soprano sax. There are two guitars, and they sound markedly different. One is cranked up and metallically possessed, the other tries to keep a bit more classic, organic warmth (a tube amp is a must). Two drummers as well. Only Matjaž Bajc remains the “lone” bassist (though he swings a gong too), while Pacorig on keys is a brand-new addition to the band. He also plays a Rhodes electric piano, whose (Zawinul/Hancock-style) “pastels” often soften the record’s otherwise bristling sound.
Early on, Koromač sounded very punk, very hardcore, and the members have always had a soft spot for crafting sonic terror. They don’t give those elements up even as they mature artistically, building on the compositional phenomenon of fusion, which brings the experience of eclecticism, with jazz elements clearly leading the way on the new album. The guitar phrasing storms are still here, along with the pronounced onslaughts of simple rhythmic structures from the doubled drums, which lay bare the rock and punk elements. The racket stays. That racket that’s followed the band since forever. That potent sonic terror, occasionally staring into the total chaos of instruments neighing across each other. But for all this sonic difficulty and complexity, Koromač come out more mature. Artistically they’ve climbed a few steps up from the previous album. In all the very demanding parts, where the flows of winds and guitars seem to pick out notes between the notes, where the melody refuses to settle in your ear, Koromač work like a precisely tuned orchestra, where they “consciously feel each other out” and where “spontaneous cut-outs of free-form improvisation” are not allowed, even though the music they create is often extremely complex. The layered, collective motivic “bursts” of the winds thunder mightily and in effect replace that destructive phrasing you’d find in, say, metal, while sticking to strict jazz forms in their motifs. Especially in these parts Koromač come across as particularly “orchestral” and jazzcore at the same time, and fans of early King Crimson, listening to these sections, will (at least slightly) raise one of their eyebrows. There are free jazz elements here, while the structures, or forms, suggest the guys also matured under the mentorship of the legendary Zlatko Kavčič.
The centerpiece, and certainly the most demanding track on the album, is Masturbator. As the name suggests, it’s a string of the most hard-hitting pursuits of “apparent” chaos, where forms fall apart, where extremely fast note runs wedge in as solos, especially on the guitars, and yet everything the music says has an absolutely determined sense. Petajzl Ptjzal, which follows that track, opens quite differently. The framework rests on an atmospheric motif built jointly by keys and guitars, and the winds anchor jazzily into it, playfully searching for room for witty, accessible jazz variations. So! It’s not all “slogging”. The album has well-crafted moments of formatted reconciliation, because in a dialogue of great tolerance and mutual awareness the building blocks of sound coexist, and Koromač, as hinted at in the intro of the track Petajzl Ptjzal, know how to deftly reach for atmospheric buildups of mood too.
Tucked away at the tail end of the album is a bonus track, Ignoranca. It comes from »Punk Enough?«, but the album includes the live version of that track played at the Cerkno concert, which is where all the new tracks come from, of course. Proof that the whole show was considerably longer. Maybe one day that concert, recorded in Cerkno at the 24th Jazz Cerkno festival, will come out as a separate live document. Anyway. With »Kontrapunk«, Koromač have outgrown »Punk Enough?« in artistic maturity. They reach for new approaches and challenges of musical inspiration, and skillfully fold them into their musical vision. And that way the band’s musical body of work, its musical dossier, gets even clearer and more refined contours of uniqueness, as Koromač keep stepping boldly, daringly and unburdened through the evolutionary process of broadening their expressive diversity and layering. They won’t stop. That’s for sure. So Koromač can only pleasantly surprise us down the road, which is a great send-off!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Jazz do Punk
2. Fellow Cuttie
3. Masturbator
4. Petajzl Ptjzal
5. Get the Fuck Out (plus a “hidden” live version of Ignoranca)
Line-up:
Jure Boršič – alto sax
Boštjan Simon – baritone & soprano sax
Francesco Ivone – trumpet
Aljaž Škrlep – guitar
Anton Lorenzutti – guitar
Matjaž Bajc – bass guitar, gong
Giorgio Pacorig – Rhodes & Korg MS-20
Žiga Ipavec – drums
Urban Kušar – drums
