Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Moveknowledgement
Label: Kapa Records
Released: 2005
Running time: 49:47
Rating: 3.8/5
Success always favors the bold and the brave, and if the crew of an adventurous musical cruiser also includes level-headed, well-versed musicians with a sense for aesthetics and for substance itself, the result can only be pure pleasure. Proof of that is the album I’m planning to pull off a dusty shelf today for the less-informed and quick-to-forget readers – the 2005 record Ant People, with which the multi-genre conglomerate known as Moveknowledgement dared to smash every notion that those of you who like to jump to conclusions might have formed after Sun Sun, their wildly infectious debut. Moveknowledgement are cunning, freshness-soaked musical tomcats, as we know today. After a partial reshuffle of the original lineup and the arrival of two superb instrumentalists with a feel for that old-school jazz funk sound (I mean, of course, the gifted bassist Dejan Slak a.k.a. Sleyk and the excellent keyboardist Miha Šajina a.k.a. Shekuza), the real flight into the stratosphere had only just begun. The guys and the girl tried a completely different recipe this time, and wriggled out of the gravity of the predictable with a hybrid of futurized rusticity – jazzy funk that pushes out of every pore of this truly urban, saturated gem.
In 2005 the world was bursting at the seams with intensely dumbed-down hip hop, with the blink-blink pointlessness of depersonalized r’n’b, with MTV’s syphilitic, perverted commercialism and one-note nonsense, and into this universe of lost values came a solid piece of work flying in from the Dolenjska capital, one that dares to reach for the legacy of John Coltrane, the free meter of fusion names like Billy Cobham, even some easygoing Wather Report spiked with the sharpness and spice of Lalo Shifrin. Through the intelligent interplay of bass, drums and guitar, vocal dialogues weave in between the sharp-tongued freestyle rapping of N’Toko and Sandra’s dreamy vocals. I mustn’t forget those sweet sounds of synthesized keyboards either, which are closer to the fullness of the early seventies than to the millennial vacuum of too much pounding on nothing, plus a few grams of just-right sweetened woodwind touches, and you get the first impression of a truly exceptional album, one that shakes me up and surprises me with nuances even after long years of repetitive dives into its essence. Moveknowledgement have always had one foot anchored in the golden age of good music, in the past, while the other is stretched out in a stride toward a futuristic world of dreams and tomorrow, which has always led them away from the lukewarm currents of cliché-cut pointlessness and larpurlatizma, trendiness, and the commercial selling off of body and soul for that minute or two on the airwaves of commercial radio stations. The Muveki have always been out of the ordinary, and Ant People is part of that mosaic, with the band presenting itself through eleven gorgeous tracks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9y6Pp_LDBI
The story kicks off with the spacey bleeping of keyboards and the jazzy interplay of bass and drums in Vancouver Airport. R2D2 sounds, then the soft play of tasteful smooth jazz channels itself into the faster funky rap of N’Toko’s doubled vocals, which have gained a bit more edge and clarity since Sun Sun, while the band has matured even further in these three years and shaken off the shackles of predictability. With his keyboards, Shekuza adds to the sonic picture that certain something Sun Sun was chronically missing. It’s probably that soft touch of rusticity and the cherry on top that fills certain frequency gaps which used to stay empty. Safe & Sound, with its more soul funk vibe, comes close to the feel of the debut, but there are fewer of those easy-to-remember anchor points than there were years ago, which in no way kills or limits the free flow of associatively branching cosmic thoughts daring to fly a bit farther than the dome of our little world. Sandra blends nicely into the whole here, while N’Toko dominates the wordplay much more this time. The track Soundclash surprisingly returns to the days of reggae jazz funking, and once all the registers open up with Wein’s distorted guitar, I get a very concrete vision of French Funk Fundation (FFF), though I can’t shake the smoky aftertaste of a thirties jazz dive, except that this time the stage isn’t shining with dreamy dark-skinned virtuosos but with pale-faced time travelers who’ve used a time machine to find their way into the past and tell their high-octane, pissed-off story about the world and missed norms. Ant People is a progressive take on our own chained-in-the-train-of-habits state, our voluntary enslavement, with cities guarding millions of ants like anthills do – well-programmed people who run their lives in the manner of good, hardworking, conflict-free cogs in the whole.
Moveknowledgement are orators who this time paint the picture of the world they feel with a jazz brush, one that now resonates through them in a more avant-garde jazz way with more old-school sounds. The track Second Chance is more of a flash of the past in this collage, a past the band keeps recording itself into more and more, even though the presence of a gentle feminine touch gave the group a better shot at sneaking onto the airwaves of stations where people with a pinch of taste for good music stand behind the mixing desks. The focus, the creative center of gravity of this Novo Mesto collective, is elsewhere. Obviously in testing the limits of their abilities and courage, which is well shown by the more futuristic, dreamy hypnoticism of Olympics, which glides honey-smooth into the center with a sinfully good brass nod to Otpisani (remember the incredible musical backdrop of that series from our youth?) and a few other quality jewels of the past. Roots, musical ones too, matter a lot for an upright stance, and Roots Of Baobab, like the Madagascan natural monoliths, those huge trees, bets everything on jazzy playfulness, where Wein can nicely go toe to toe with the sensuality of Primož Grašič, if I may be a little provocative, and after a gorgeous instrumental interlude of positivity and easygoing playfulness, a bit more spice gets blown into the urban jazz fusion universe. Mission To Bombay, with the distinctive vocalization of the sharp N’Toko, balances the whole range of flavors between the sweet illusion of Pat Matheney and feminine sensuality, with a punchier note of uncompromising attitude, freshness and fast-tongued acrobatics. The more sensual undertones of Lonelyness, after the truly nocturnal, gorgeous fade-out of Night Life, close softly with the last breath of Secret, which is full of feeling, softness, tenderness and a bittersweet goodbye.
Ant People may not be a record that serves up some track you’ll be humming all week, but on a qualitative level it’s a work that empirically showed the full artistic range and solid grounding of every member of the collective. Anyone who dares to play with jazz has to muster at least enough courage and know-how to survive that test, and if applause and praise follow, all the better. Moveknowledgement proved they’ve got the goods, and that this kind of testing only shows that you can’t and won’t equate predictability and cliché with their name and albums. The proof followed with Nebukadnezar, which we didn’t know yet in 2005, but something concrete had shifted in the tectonics of Slovenian music-making. Players had stepped onto the scene who decided to write a whole new set of rules and rebelliously win their place in the eyes of the audience, critics and people with a taste for music, while keeping their own backbone and identity through it all. The latter isn’t for sale with the Muveki, as they’re not like Haribo gummy bears, unlike some of their colleagues in the trade. That’s exactly the essence we can all learn something from, and with their second attempt the band managed to earn respect in the eyes of more than just narrow-minded local youth. Ant People was only the second lesson, the schooling and chiseling of a more refined musical expression was yet to come, and listening to this gorgeous progressive jazz piece of the past, all I can do is agree with the Dolenjska proverb: »What’s good ain’t bad!«.
Lineup
Sandra Tomović – vocals
Miha Blažič – N’Toko – vocals
Uroš Weinberger – guitar
David Cvelbar – drums
Dejan Slak – Sleyk – bass
Miha Šajina – keyboards
Gregor Turk – Gec – trumpet
Mitja Turk – Micc – alto and soprano saxophone
Guest musicians:
Jelena Ždrale – violin
Igor Matkovič – trumpet
Production
Jani Mujić
Track list
1. Vancouver airport
2. Safe & Sound
3. Soundclash
4. Ant People
5. Second chance
6. Olympics
7. Roots of the baobab
8. Mission to Bombay
9. Lonelyness
10. Nightlife
11. Secret
