Label: Akord Records & Kulturni center Maribor
Release date: 24. 7. 2020
Production: Borut Činč
Album length: 27.52 min
Genre: Singer / Songwritter
Rating: 9.5/10
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You hear the first few seconds of this record and suddenly you’re surrounded by feelings you haven’t had in a very long time. You can’t even remember exactly when. But you know them well. They feel like home. That was the time of innocence, big hopes, dreams and goals, leaving behind a quiet but eternal longing. The eighties? Maybe the early nineties too. Somewhere around there.
This time, Boštjan Gartner is the one generating those feelings. A Slovenian singer-songwriter who released his first studio album, »Reka«, in the mid-nineties, though he’d already made quite a name for himself before his debut came out, with activity stretching back to the second half of the eighties. After a long 24 years, Boštjan Gartner has finally made his comeback. With his second album, the pleasantly ‘grounding’ »Čas brez iluzij«.
In the eighties, we all knew Mežek, Domicelj and Šifrer. Their songs, which became folk classics ages ago, were a staple of campfire singalongs and guitar strumming at scout camps and similar get-togethers. These three names are basically the foundation that put the Slovenian singer-songwriter scene on the world map back in the seventies. Boštjan Gartner, guitar slung over his shoulder, keeps in touch with the traditional elements of the singer-songwriter craft and sung poetry. There’s a bit of Pengov in there too. But the first thing that sticks is Boštjan’s gorgeous voice, which can melt even the most granite-hard heart. And he does it with feather-light ease. At the same time, over the years Boštjan has mastered his own style of acoustic guitar accompaniment extremely well. Under his vocal melodies he plays fingerpicking pretty much throughout, placing the picked notes within the chords with great feel and skill, whether to emphasize the rhythm, which is the foundation, or within the transitional ‘glue’ (between verses, between verse and chorus), where extra notes create contrasting ornaments that stir the songs up and boost their dynamics. This approach blends perfectly with the vocal color and the heartfelt, confessional weight of the message. Delicacy, tenderness, fragility, the longing of murmuring emotions, delivered through the intense re-living of a perceptive, sung-poetry confession, hits all the harder across the barely 28 minutes of this little record, given the depth with which it’s delivered. It only confirms that the more feeling, softness and subtlety you bring, the more contrast in the intensity of the emotions you deliver, the more a song with poetry touches the listener. In his poetry, Boštjan is a moving observer whose confession wells up “from the inside out”. A personal, intimate inner confession of a heart that hasn’t rotted away. With any more confessional breadth, you could hardly reach a listener at all.
With guitar and sung poetry, Boštjan is a strong figure all on his own, but he still felt it would help to bring another musician into the recording of this album. He turned to Buldožer legend and seasoned maestro Borut Činč, who on some of the tracks added to, colored, intensified and enriched the moods of this intimate soundscape with soft sonic pastels of Hammond organ and Wurlitzer piano, following the sweet sound of a delicate plasma of organic tones. This album was recorded “in one take”, which hugely boosts its authenticity and sincerity.
Even though many years passed between Gartner’s two albums, they’re true kin in every way, carrying all the recognizable traits of their creator’s bubbling, burning heart. That makes the link between them clear to follow, and the listener bridges this long time loop in an instant. Boštjan’s warm, velvety voice has grown more mature and wiser over the years and, last but not least, more experienced.
Time lets the river flow without illusions! Even if the illusions lie shattered beneath giant blocks of rockfall, a glowing ember still smolders under them. Constantly, into eternity. Even when nothing is left but nothing and music. Traces of time, which every morning the first sunray licks from the dew on the meadow flowers. A play of eternity and longing. The illusions are gone, but hope remains. »Čas brez iluzij« is a moving, deeply felt record from start to finish. With his confessional one-of-a-kind voice, Gartner adds one more musical gem to the rich, colorful tradition of Slovenian singer-songwriter music, a piece that’s been missing from that mosaic for far too long.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Kam vodi ta cesta
2. Na poti v tuje kraje
3. Tih brezčasen dan
4. Dež
5. Tišina
6. Bila sta jutro
7. Če živela bi drug čas
8. Stare slike
9. Dan brez senc
10. Zimski veter
11. Čas brez iluzij
Lineup:
Boštjan Gartner – vocals, guitar
Borut Činč – Hammond organ & Wurlitzer piano on tracks 1, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10 & 11
