Label: Celinka
Release date: 21.03.2017
Album length: 60.25 min
Production: Samo Šalamon
Genre: Art Rock / Jazz / Folk
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Buy the album!
No doubt about it. Samo Šalamon and Vesna Zornik teaming up on a shared musical project is the kind of idea that stirs things up the moment you think of it, and it teases you into guessing how it’s going to turn out. Add the poetry of young, talented, up-and-coming poet Kristina Kočan, which is the foundation the music grew from, and you get the trio behind the Brest project. The album “Nemi film” is the result of that collaboration.
What strikes you right away is that Brest is a musical environment neither Vesna nor Samo had lived in before, and yet they communicate and tune into each other in it with incredible efficiency, which means the right amount of creative working chemistry clicked between them. An important weight on the scale comes from Kristina Kočan’s poetry, with its sparkling, highly intelligent and perceptive messages. The poetry is the bedrock, and in building the compositions it demands a lot of delicate sensitivity from the performers, especially vocally from Vesna Zornik, who had to really work through this poetry and feel it (sense it) before she started breathing the first vocal lines into it. That’s exactly why it’s a pleasant surprise that this time, on “Nemi film”, Vesna mostly steers clear of the vocal approaches typical of her work with Katalena and TangoApasionada, and instead shows herself in a wider range of vocal coloring and interpretation.
Given that cabaret chanson, soaked in pop aesthetics with a female voice at its center, long ago “got permanent citizenship” in Slovenia, and that we have performers of this kind in abundance, the achievement itself doesn’t bring anything special (we’re talking about reach within the Slovenian music scene). What it did manage, though, in this crowded company, is effectively rise above its basic genre affiliation, because it constantly and deftly, in its own way, engages with arrangement challenges that flirt across genres. Blues, world music, Latin melos, even ethereal impulses of sonic experimentation, and plenty of jazz finesse from the exceptional Samo, who this time had to flexibly reach for the traditional jazz toolbox.
For Samo Šalamon too, the concept of this project was a challenge of its own kind. How do you keep the musicality and the compact, followable songwriting, while at the same time, within these short and punchy approaches with their full-blooded, tangible substance, always adding that adventurous spark of virtuoso reflections that are otherwise typical of this many-layered jazz guitarist? We know that, among other things, his “Ornetologija” ranks very high in the world of contemporary jazz, which is just one proof of what an exceptional musician Samo is.
All fourteen tracks are strictly compact compositions with a clearly perceptible musical backbone that speaks to you with lightness and cheeky playfulness. Always in a manner of positive vibes and positive thoughts. There’s considerably less melancholy than usually gets captured on record by this kind of musical adventure in Slovenia. Yes. Cabaret chanson with a female voice front and center, where different genres deftly pass the baton to one another, ends up as a blend of them all and a real eclecticism. That was also the core aim of the album “Nemi film”.
The album has an exceptional organic warmth and liveliness. The drums were programmed by Samo, and the bass lines were played (or, where there are none, handled) by Samo Pečar (Bro, Siti Hlapci). Jazz purists would find the only flaw of the release in this. The fact that the album should have had a seasoned drummer of flesh and blood from the get-go, namely Bojan Krhlanek (The Stroj, Pero Lovšin Band), who, together with Pečar, Zornik and Šalamon, is part of the live lineup of Brest.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Drobne stvari (04:16)
2. Nemi film (04:07)
3. Slike v očeh (05:21)
4. Sama v mestu (03:44)
5. Paviljon (03:32)
6. Na prašni cesti (06:20)
7. Žabice (03:30)
8. 21 načinov (04:06)
9. Bluz (05:18)
10. Zvezde so gorele (05:46)
11. Kovčki (04:16)
12. Dež (03:54)
13. Črni vran (03:32)
14. Tulpe (03:26)
Lineup:
Kristina Kočan – lyrics, backing vocals (5,8)
Samo Šalamon – acoustic and electric guitars, bass guitar (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,11,12,14), backing vocals (5,7,8,12), drum programming (2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,12,13)
Vesna Zornik – lead vocals, backing vocals (5,7,8,12)
Guest musicians:
Miloš Bogataj – lap-steel guitar (8,12)
Boštjan Gombač – trumpet (4), clarinet (14)
Andrej Hrvatin – percussion (14)
Špela Huzjak – violin (11)
Daniel Marinič – accordion (1)
Samo Pečar – bass guitar (3,9,10,13)
