Label: ZKP RTV Slovenija
Release year: 2006
Production: Mirko Vuksanović & David Šuligoj
Album length: 51.25 min
Genre: Art Rock / Pop
After the album Enakonočje (2000), the legendary Slovenian art pop rock charmers Avtomobili from Nova Gorica took a full six years to come back with a new studio record. There’s no need to waste many words on Avtomobili. This is a crew of the most refined arrangers not just in Slovenia, but anywhere you care to look. Avtomobili have always won people over with their sharp, uniquely tantalizing blend of velvety, infectious pop rock, which blossomed in the first half of the eighties out of the new wave sound of the time (itself rooted in punk) – back when Avtomobili focused mostly on the market of the former Yugoslavia.
By the time »Mesto železniških postaj« came out, the band had left behind a pile of evergreen hits and anchored itself on the Slovenian map with a bright, glowing shine that no generation of Slovenian rock fans can overlook – and the same goes for every generation to come. With »Mesta železniških postaj«, they took another step forward in cultivating their unique and wildly charismatic art rock character.
The first novelty is that, for the first time in Avtomobili’s long career, frontman Marko Vuksanović doesn’t play bass. Soon after the release of »Enakonočje« (2000), the excellent bassist David Šuligoj from the Primorska region joined the band, who also owns the Sonus studio in Nova Gorica. While listening to »Mesto železniških postaj«, you don’t need to be Einstein to quickly notice how the bass line has become distinctly warmer across the whole album: exuberant, even playfully exploratory, and often juicily »funky« (V teh mrzlih jutrih), or even dance-oriented, as in the opener Prihaja moj dan… Šuligoj is simply a great master with a refined, innate feel for filling the available space around the main motifs of the songs as he picks out his melodic bass lines, and Avtomobili made full use of that on »Mesta železniških postaj«. As a seasoned sound wizard and musician, David was immediately recognized by the band as a talent for co-shaping the arrangements, the lion’s share of which was once again handled by the band’s eternal keyboardist Mirko Vuksanović. David Šuligoj also got the green light to help shape the album’s sonic identity in the studio.
Avtomobili albums have always been renowned for their subtle sound, and the band has always strived for an even distribution of the individual building blocks of the sonic picture. Avtomobili are sound perfectionists, perfectionists in the search for the ideal symbiosis of the main motifs and the use of arrangement space. »Mesta železniških postaj« can thus boast an even denser, more natural, organic-sounding sonic picture, in which the building blocks are sunk in even more compatibly – living in optimal harmony. The album caught the right moment of convincingly working chemistry in the studio. As such, it once again boasts a few excellent arrangements that can easily stand up to some of the band’s biggest hits.
»Mesto železniških postaj« outdoes its studio predecessors in the mature, wise upgrading of Avtomobili’s otherwise unique musical vocabulary, especially given that the band kept an up-to-date approach to shaping sound in the studio alongside its recognizable trademarks. Years of coexisting in the same lineup have forged solid chemical bonds, and the Alan Jakin – Mirko Vuksanović duo works more intensely this time than at any point since 1988. On top of that, you can feel that the band, more mature than ever, started using veils of sonic landscapes in its already age-old, delicately pragmatic sophistication of arrangements, and even added a few programmed sound loops to effectively bring across the desired moods of the album. The opener Prihaja moj dan already hints at this, with its dense accompanying arrangement structure that Vuksanović’s vocals are wrapped in.
Interestingly, the first track Prihaja moj dan doesn’t yet »season« the album to the max, and it’s the two songs right after it, April and Gorica, that lift it up to the first creative peak. Three opening songs and a quick triple contrast of arranging and stringing together vivid moods, a typical puzzle of yearning melancholy and mysticism that never slides into pathetic wallowing. Quite the opposite. The album shakes you with the honesty brought by Marko’s metaphorical depth and intellect, while his poetry also carries plenty of radiant outlook. On top of that, the man is a master at combining melodiousness in the use of Slovenian, which is no easy feat. »Getting onto the consonant« when building the required melodic singability is far harder in Slovenian than in English. We’re not soft like the Croats or Italians, but not hard like the Germans either. Marko has always mastered this skill brilliantly, and on »Mesta železniških postaj« he once again brings sparkling metaphorical subtlety, crowned by his distinctly charming, velvet-caressing, instantly recognizable voice.
The band has always built its songs on a framework of two verses, (optionally) two pre-choruses, two choruses, a middle instrumental section and an (optional) pre-chorus with a closing chorus. The essence of eighties pop, in other words. The songs obviously differ from one another in expression. They keep up the motif-level variety and the band’s typical musical charisma. The differences lie in how heavily the arrangements are loaded with genre touches, a colorful leaflet of rock, pop, jazz, funk, soul and blues. A hallmark of the band is that it cunningly understands what it means to build atmosphere toward a final crescendo that culminates in catchy chorus melodies. So on one side of the album you have songs that start out incredibly subtle, unobtrusive, dainty and tender, innocently layering veils of accompaniment around Marko’s supple vocal delivery. That goes for April as well as Gorica, but the most intense contrast in this respect comes with Obsedela sva sama, where the heavy, dramatic chorus gains rock intensity and an unexpected bluesy connotation, complete with a trumpet arrangement. The next song, V teh mrzlih jutrih, is the complete opposite, with a programmed sound loop humming through the verse before it flows, to striking contrast, into a positive, rock-bouncy, melodically infectious chorus. After the pop-heavy, slightly naive and least interesting song on the album, V jadrih (which is nevertheless playfully seasoned with Mirko’s improvisational inserts floating in the background of the accompaniment), the band’s artistry shines in full glory right after it, when Nocoj hits. Nocoj is a song optimized in its arrangement, with the typical art rock charisma that only Avtomobili are capable of brewing up. Doses of uniqueness, pop accessibility and provocatively masterful unveiling of the basic motifs, with unpretentious improvisational inserts (an outstanding middle instrumental section), are fused together in ideal harmony.
With Nekaj let, the band returns on the album to the vibe of April and Gorica. Another extremely strong creation, perfectly balanced in its arrangements. Clearly, it’s the melancholy that wakes you up, shakes you, freezes the blood in your veins, that is the key to the full impact of Marko’s poetry, adorned once more by the refined, mellifluous arrangements of this song. Ballad and half-ballad creations are thus the foundation of Avtomobili’s expressive power. You feel a burning heart that, in its unfulfillment, has to keep burning. But it stays unrotted. Neither in pain nor in love. There’s no retreat here. All that remains is the chopping block of exceptional groundedness and honesty, wrapped in the gorgeous plasma of subtlety that is Vuksanović’s poetry. Nekaj let is a song that will definitely break your heart, but there’s no point resisting, because that’s the only way to enjoy it fully! Magic! »Luckily«, a vibe shift follows right after it: Proti Luni! Proti Luni is a Nocoj-type song that we can declare a future evergreen on the spot, and the part of the album most compatible with radio frequencies! The playful Pod tvojo obleko keeps up the mischievous sentiment of Proti Luni, while a gradient of rock-bluesy fervor swells in it, underpinned by a playful funky rhythm line. Another excellent mix of pop, rock and blues follows in the coquettish waltz In pride čas (the song is one of Alan Jakin’s finest moments on the album, but we’ll come back to Alan later), which is followed by the album’s closing oddball, Oblaki.
Oblaki is considered the band’s biggest confrontation with musical experiment on the album. Another song that shakes you to the bone. It opens up »soul-funk« style, dictated in the first part by Alan’s wah-wah effect, sophisticated footwork on the pedal, a softly dictated rhythm,…. Think of Fatih No More’s song Evidence. Surprised? Good! This song carries the most intense chorus of melancholic yearning, with an ideal melodic line »à la Avtomobili« that, following Marko’s poetry, leaves listeners with a lump in the throat. An incredibly intense ending to the album that leaves you wide awake and shaken. Exactly what every good art rock album should deliver. In the intensity of the band’s artistry, the song that comes closest to Oblaki on the album is Nekaj let, which could just as well have been used at the tail end of the tracklist.
The review isn’t over yet. We absolutely have to stop at Alan Jakin. »Mesta železniških postaj« represents the peak of Alan’s artistic maturing, marked by a distinct multilayered expressiveness, a fine flirtation with many genres, and the power of a sophisticated yet unique guitar approach that, with feather-light ease, bridges the seemingly unbridgeable gaps between genres. Avtomobili will never be the same after this album. »Mesta železniških postaj« is, in fact, Jakin’s epitaph. Soon after the album was recorded, Alan was struck by a tragic accident.
Alan delivered some exceptional guitar moments on the album! The first time his guitar stands out is in the intro of April, with a piercingly softly placed opening rock riff, backed by a wah-wah line, while in the outro of the same song the guitarist shines in the boldness of placing just a few emphatically wailing notes, putting him alongside giants of the most sophisticated guitar approach like David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Andy Latimer (Camel) or Steve Hackett (Genesis). In this respect, Alan Jakin is without a doubt a great guitar ace and a guru of his craft. In Gorica he shines again, filling the available space with assorted »Gilmouresques«, and the most interesting part is the interplay of Alan’s guitar with Mirko’s keyboards in the chorus’s lead melody, which follows in sharp contrast to the melody of Marko’s verses. And then we get to one of Alan Jakin’s finest moments on the album! The already mentioned In pride čas, where the musician shows off his multilayered makeup and every trait of expressive refinement, absolute control over the sound, over every single note he picks and »bends« however he pleases. The outro solo is the peak of all this. That solo is practically the mood peak of the song itself. Jakin squeezes out even more softness and emotional intensity in the closing Oblaki, where his landscape of »Gilmouresques« in the pre-chorus once again works wonderfully with the veil of Mirko Vuksanović’s keyboards, while his soul pop funk softness hums through the verse.
“Mesta železniških postaj” is Alan Jakin’s »finest hour«! He is one of the finest, most expressively charismatic, most insightful in his ideas and most sophisticated in his approach guitarists Slovenia has ever produced in the history of rock music. With his arrival on the album »Krenimo«, the band was able to make a marked evolutionary leap to a higher expressive level in the second half of the eighties, and Alan Jakin’s multilayered skill then allowed the band constant artistic maturing and growth, all the way up to and including the album »Mesta železniških postaj«.
The album »Mesta železniških postaj« ranks among the finest creations of the band’s long-running career, and among the finest moments in the history of Slovenian rock. Maturity, experience, a strong structure of chemical bonds, a more than successful integration of Šuligoj into the bassist’s spot, the one-of-a-kind duo of Mirko Vuksanović and Alan Jakin, and of course the irreplaceable vocal stamp of Marko Vuksanović all reached full artistic bloom on »Mesta železniških postaj«, and with this album Avtomobili proved that their fine-mechanics game is nowhere near rusting.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.5 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Prihaja moj dan
2. April
3. Gorica
4. Obsedela sva sama
5. V teh mrzlih jutrih
6. V jadrih
7. Nocoj
8. Nekaj let
9. Proti luni
10. Pod tvojo obleko
11. In pride čas
12. Oblaki
Lineup:
Marko Vuksanović – vocals
Alan Jakin – guitar
Mirko Vuksanović – keyboards
David Šuligoj – bass guitar
Marko Lasić – drums
