Self-released
Release date: December 28, 2020
Production: Peter Lebar
Album length: 48.16 min
Genre: electronic music / ambient / alternative
Rating: 8.5/10
Rojpot. Roj and pot. That’s “swarm” and “path” (or, if you like, “sweat”). First associations? Insects and perspiration. Anything else? Frank Zappa. Where did he come from all of a sudden? Well, that verse of his about “endless torture”: “Flies all green and buzzing…”. Flies in a swarm? Rarely. But if they have to be green ones, we’re talking those metallic, shiny kind, and it gets clear fast where and when they gather in a swarm. Always when a phenomenon of bodily creation, strictly repellent in nature, walks into our everyday lives. Let’s climb down from the associations back into reality and wrap up this intro with something more meaningful. The opening sound sample of a winged swarm, whether from the order of Hymenoptera or Diptera, which kicks off the album titled “Rojpot”, actually foretells the substance of the record as it landed in this reviewer’s clutches (‘a swarming signpost into sonic schlock’).
Behind the music project Rojpot and its self-titled debut stands Ljubljana-based musical visionary Peter Lebar. The album “Rojpot” brings a fresh, thoroughly one-of-a-kind musical adventure and counts as an oddball in the Slovenian music scene and beyond. Mixing electronic music, sampling and programming with jazz and alternative rock moves no longer even surprises anyone in the Slovenian underground. We’ve had long, rich experience with that here, and so a lavish arsenal of acts who’ve somehow built a wave of alternative music culture all their own. It’s practically a tradition. And it’s good that artists trying their hand at these realms of genre fusion always carve out that much-desired slice of eclecticism and build it into their musical milieu, which creates clearly noticeable diversity. “Rojpot” is like that too.
Apart from the arrangements for two of the album’s tracks, “Rojpot” is entirely the musical work of Peter Lebar. The project as a whole is conceived very lightly and gives off a feeling of total free-spirited, free-flowing openness, when it comes to being open to integrating ideas and the core urge to seek a constantly conciliatory dialogue between many musical elements in an easy-to-listen-to yet eclectic format. The frameworks (backdrops) of the tracks, based partly on programmed samples and synth pastels, are filled with an integration of keyboards, guitars, winds and extra drums, and two tracks are vocal too, though let’s be honest, this kind of music doesn’t necessarily need vocals, unless they’re used as an additional instrument. “Rojpot” has plenty of transcendental drift; it offers a trippy experience, since the phrases are multi-repetitive, while the team of musicians wisely, skillfully, very attentively and prudently lays down sonic layer upon layer, from which a lavish musical mass grows, let’s just call it a distinctive musical body. But they do it with great patience and, as I said, prudence. The conciliatory addition of elements, especially jazz and funk, into the electronic milieu makes for consistently highly attractive musical content. Easy on the ears. No detours whatsoever and no escapes into avant-garde musical weirdness. The music carries you away, because it stays highly musical throughout, except in select moments such as the (vocal) Svet distrakcije, which, given the very message (the title), isn’t even supposed to. Despite its otherwise dark nature, the album consistently hits a highly vibrant rhythmic and musical dynamic, so it’ll appeal to plenty of listeners.
The next paragraph calls for some pragmatism in looking at the musical phenomenon in all its forms, from several angles. The music of “Rojpot” will pleasantly surprise and win over, let’s say spark interest in, all those of you who are drawn first and foremost to electronic music of a “dark nature”, where the parallels with the gains of krautrock, N.D.W., I.D.M., as well as bigger acts, from trip-hoppers Massive Attack to (for the Slovenian alternative) always interesting and experimental acts, say: from Bowrain, Aleksander Arsov’s ventures under the alias Unhappy, to the likes of Kontradikshn, are not negligible. Although these quick name-drops serve the (random) reader of this piece more as a passing point of orientation than a firm ‘handhold’ on what’s what (musically speaking), there’s a certain artistic, substantive connectedness and ‘homeyness’ among the acts listed (even if loose) that will appeal to a similar kind of audience.
The vocabulary is at least a touch gloomy throughout, the ‘electronics’ keep at least minimal contact with such sonic pastels at all times, so the album has a clear alternative character and is definitely a representative of the Slovenian ‘underground’ scene.
The debut is set up so that in its artistry it offers countless options, springboards for cultivating its musical vocabulary going forward. It impresses with its own development, its own chumminess of sonic-content and ideational insight among musical elements and building blocks of the soundscape, which manages to surprise the listener and ‘unsettle’ them, both through bold moments of musical experimentation and through a solidly delivered core, that is, a firm focus of arrangement formatting, which gives it a distinct sheen of musical aesthetics. That’s why Peter Lebar’s ventures and the collective of contributing musicians will be well worth following in the future. “Rojpot” is a work of substantive insight and the highly flexible musical intellect of its creators.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Intro (00:37)
2. Espressivo introverte (02:54)
3. Svet distrakcije (03:51)
4. Chembaluminescence (06:10)
5. Safely removed from harem (08:24)
6. Kamikaza bot (03:43)
7. 7 (01:59)
8. Banditen und polizisten (03:29)
9. Orange air (06:35)
10. Cosmic super highway (04:17)
11. Bee (06:10)
Lineup:
Peter Lebar – arrangements, programming, keyboards
Guest musicians:
Katarina Nasteska – vocals on tracks 3 and 6
Januš Luznar – vocals on track 9
Adrien Douliez – saxophone on track 2
Boštjan Franetič – guitar on track 2
Elvis Sedić – guitar on track 5
Alan Ropoša – guitar on track 9
Frank Hopman – drums on track 3
Aljaž Košir – drums on track 5
