Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Polak, Cveto
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2011
Rating: 5/5
Cveto Polak is a musician who needs no special introduction. Cveto and Šank Rock. Two intertwined stories. Whatever happens to them in the future, there will always be a lump in the throat when we watch them on stage without Cveto, or follow their new releases with Cveto missing from the lineup. So “freed from the Šank shackles,” Cveto simply took the time to show off his unsuspected musical talents in a different guise. The sky’s the limit, then. Does anyone still remember the association: “Cveto and Veronica, heh, heh, heh….” But “Bass Line” is a story all its own.
Deeply personal. “Bass Line” is the moment when Cveto, as an artist, revealed creative virtues that bring the listener closest, not only to his way of expressing himself musically, but also to Cveto’s personality, to the most hidden corners of the intimate character of the musician’s soul.
“Bass Line” is an entirely instrumental album. But don’t worry. This isn’t a “show off” type of record, where you have to demonstrate how many notes per unit of time you can fire off to get crowned the fastest bass player in the world, without ever asking yourself what actually happens to the content of that sea of spent notes you’ve just shot out. Cveto approaches it with elegance and a sharp sense of tasteful aesthetics when shaping the lead melodies that carry the burden of the musician’s expression. Something similar can be found on the solo albums of the ever-“phantasmagorical” Billy Sheehan, in the basic approach to shaping the compositions, except that “Bass Line” has far more sophistication and sonic refinement, and (as a consequence) builds exclusively on atmosphere and high listenability.
The bundle of 11 richly arranged songs is the fruit of a long period of creation. How long, I couldn’t tell you, but given the highly polished colorfulness of the arrangements and the perfection of the lead motifs, it’s not hard to conclude that this album was far from written and recorded overnight. Maybe it was dreamed up, and only now have the stars in the sky lined up just right for those dreams to finally take on flesh! Better now than never. And we Slovenes can truly be proud of this new musical high point on the Slovenian music scene, because with a clear conscience and an easy mind we place it side by side with the best achievements on a world level!
The songs reach such a level of mutual diversity in their compositional approach, and in the resulting string of moods, that it’s impossible to single out the peaks of Cveto Polak’s artistic expression. Every single song on this album simply fascinates deeply. Perhaps the moments that hit hardest are the ones that bring in the element of unpredictability. I’m thinking mainly of songs like Sanje ’94 or VI (read: Roman numeral six), which tantalizingly build the atmosphere through calm opening sections, where the bass guitar melody has the first word, and then suddenly morph into kinetics of exceptional listenability with a predatory funk rock character.
Cveto invited a whole bunch of eminent guests onto the album, and each of them contributed their talent to the fullest. It’s obvious that the musicians have known each other for a long time and are great friends, because their communication with the core vision of Cveto Polak that drives “Bass Line” is fluid throughout, fits remarkably well into the chosen concept of the arrangements, and in this way widens the dynamic range of the songs themselves and the album’s tremendous variety and variability. What impresses most is the wave-like movement between calm, subtle and delicate parts, which can suddenly and unexpectedly, in the very next moment, morph into the erotomania of a rocker’s racket, armed with dominant, voluminously rattling lines. This kind of atmospheric leap is embodied on the album by, for example, the sequence of Uspavanka za mojo malo and OK.
“Bass Line” is an album that doesn’t need to force the listener into multiple spins, because the hand reflexively hits “play” on any CD player all by itself, again and again, once the last second of this thrilling record fades out. The album is accessible to a wider community, because with incredible cunning it manages to kill two important birds with one stone. At the same moment it achieves exceptional levels of listenability and general accessibility, even for the more “superficial” and less demanding listeners, while on the other hand it brings a juicy bone to gnaw on, one that musical gourmets, sonic perfectionists and, of course, all of you who strive for the rich vocabulary of musical experimentation, seasoned with the courage of artistic freedom, to which the word “restriction” is a complete stranger, will be picking at for a long time.
It’s getting harder and harder these days to find an album that fires you up, fills you with energy and literally makes you want to spin it again and again once its runtime is up. “Bass Line” is one of those. It’s full of positive vibes, drive, fervor, creative inspiration and exceptional authorial flexibility and comprehensibility. As such, it fuses many musical dimensions and overcomes seemingly insurmountable genre divides, culminating in a wickedly sparkling, visionarily clear-cut musical conglomerate. “Bass Line” is a one-of-a-kind art rock album with a signature charm of remarkable musical maturity, intelligence and creative breadth, one that breathes with full lungs and sets no limits on its own expression. Let’s hope it’s neither the first nor the last in Cveto Polak’s career. Hats off to this pure five out of five!
Lineup
Cveto Polak – bass guitar, all arrangements
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Eki Alilovski – guitar (tracks 1, 5, 6 and 9)
Roki Petkovič – guitar (tracks 10 and 11)
Boštjan Leben – guitar (track 3)
Miha Meglič – guitar (tracks 2 and 8)
Franci Zabukovec – guitar (track 4)
Tomaž Pačnik – keyboards (tracks 3, 4, 6 and 7)
Rok Spruk – tenor saxophone (track 2)
Lado Jakša – soprano saxophone (track 7)
Bojan Cvetrežnik – violin (track 9)
Jani Hace – bass guitar (track 1)
Anže Langus Petrovič – bass guitar (track 2)
Nikola Sekulovič – bass guitar (track 4)
Roman Ratej – drums (all tracks)
Production
Cveto Polak
Track List
1. Bass Line
2. Drugačne barve
3. Sanje ’94
4. Labirint spominov
5. Moj prvi
6. VI
7. Uspavanka za mojo malo
8. OK
9. Igra
10. Brez besed
11. Cesta
