A Cosmic Journey with Miha Kralj at Kino Šiška (2016)

Peter Last updated 6 April 2020

Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: Thursday, 22.09.2016

Miha Kralj, the Yugoslav and later Slovenian keyboardist, composer, singer and sound pioneer of electronic and ambient music, played one of the rare solo shows of his colorful career in the big hall of Kino Šiška. We’ll remember it above all for the incredible, nostalgia-soaked atmosphere that took over the room from the very first composition, not to mention the virtuoso technical execution directed by our musical master and sonic innovator himself. After almost four decades, Miha performed “Andromeda” live again and made every fan of electronic textures, rolling ambient curtains and all kinds of synth technology happy with his stunning show. Korg and Roland synthesizers stood out, along with a smaller Oberheim synth and a giant Moog modular for programming sound patterns, to name just a few of the keyed instruments from his rich arsenal.

Mr. Kralj, who made his name across the former shared country as a solo artist and innovator with the cult album “Andromeda” (1980), followed later by the lesser-known but no less interesting “Odyssey” (1982) and “Electric Dreams” (1985), staged his show on a grand scale, with a laser show and a few special guests who came on stage one by one. He played the opening part completely alone, or rather in the company of his keyboards, surrounded by them on all sides, so his hands were full the whole time. Most importantly, he was visibly enjoying himself throughout, which helped create the extremely positive atmosphere that quickly took hold of the hall. He played at least one song from each of those three solo albums. Some in the crowd had expected Miha to perform the entire “Andromeda” album live, but they were more than happy with the selection of songs from his impressive career.

During Miha’s set, rich projections of space and countless planets kept moving around the room while colorful, vivid lasers zipped about, so a few times we felt like we’d boarded a spaceship on a cosmic voyage toward distant galaxies. Most of the work from Miha’s career has this kind of ambient power, and if you added electric guitar, bass and drums to his mostly synth-driven music, in some cases that combination could give you a really interesting space rock, one of those experimental genres that has always been badly missed on our soil. Of course, Miha as a solo musician has always preferred to follow his own visions and doesn’t pay much attention to the trends of the day, which is exactly as it should be. His synths still sound the way they did in the eighties, so he had no trouble recreating the magical mood of his most cherished creative period.

The first guest, Anja Gaberc on harp, joined Miha for the famous instrumental “Andromeda”, which comes from the album of the same name and stuck with most of the older people in the audience as the music that accompanied slow footage of ski flying in Planica back in the eighties. In “Sezona senc” by the band Prah, Miha was joined on vocals and acoustic guitar by Andraž Hribar, the son of his former musical collaborator Milan Hribar, with whom he played in the bands Intervali and Celeias. After that period, Miha was a member of Prah between 1975 and 1980, and played all over Slovenia with them. Special praise goes to guest singer Brigita Lupša, who gave an excellent performance of “Vesoljne smeti” and “Zemlja kliče S.O.S.”, the well-known song Miha performed at Slovenska popevka in 1983, and to guest violinist Lazaro, who impressed in “Galactic Car” and “Future Shine”. For the finale, Miha had a very special surprise. He invited his old comrades, the original (and still living) members of Dekameroni (1969-1972), up on stage, and together they played and sang their big hit “Sava šumi”, which has long since become a folk classic, and which many forget was written by Miha. The reunion of Dekameroni and their first show since 1972 was sadly only symbolic, but still, you couldn’t have dreamed up a better ending, one that covered practically every chapter of Miha’s rich creative path. At the end, after a set of about seventy minutes, came a thunderous and more than well-deserved round of applause.

Miha Kralj, whom some call the Yugoslav / Slovenian Jean-Michel Jarre (though he himself shies away from the nickname), reminded everyone in the Katedrala, the big hall of Kino Šiška, of his musical greatness, which even after all these decades still shines at full strength. For his contribution to the development of (not just Slovenian) electronic and ambient music, he would undoubtedly deserve more respect and attention than he usually gets from the media. The sound during his show was enviably good the whole way through, which is hardly surprising for such a sonic perfectionist. Miha’s music, especially the album “Andromeda”, should be protected by our ministry of culture as a national treasure of special cultural importance, but in these greedy times of barbaric capitalism, when music and culture in general are ‘of secondary importance to our society’ (a phrase we keep hearing from one representative of state institutions or another), that sadly won’t happen. First we’ll need to seriously change our mindset and state of mind, even if that takes a thousand more listens to Miha’s futuristic ambient journeys and sonic visions that heal body and soul.

author: Peter Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

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