Location: Ljubljana / Menza pri koritu / Slovenia
Concert date: 09.04.2013
Attendance: 150-200
Ticket price: €12 in advance, €15 on the day of the show
I don’t know which band needs more of an intro right now – our own Litošt or the American headliners The Soft Moon. There are more »whys« here – Litošt is a more or less brand-new project, while The Soft Moon is a band that has only recently started getting that kind of recognition worldwide, especially outside the US and Central Europe, so both bands need a few words. But maybe something else matters more here – headliners usually get the more extensive introduction because, well, they’re the headliners, but that night Litošt impressed everyone so much that they probably even overshadowed The Soft Moon, which also means they have to be treated at least on the headliner level, if not as, to put it in a slightly worn-out way, the stars of the night.
So, Litošt are a trio of not entirely unknown musicians – Boštjan Simon and Vitja Balžalorsky on keyboards (with the latter doubling as the bassist) and Bojan Krhlanko on drums. What drives them is, above all, carefree creating, with zero interest in any previously established guidelines, just the urge to experiment, to hunt for new sounds, for interesting, intelligent rhythms, for complete freedom from any outside influences. But this kind of breaking free from the shackles isn’t their guiding principle – Litošt, at least from what I heard, aren’t different for the sake of being different. They’re different because they don’t need influences to create. They’re different because they don’t burden themselves with what’s already been heard. And above all, they’re different because their difference actually has something to say. They showed that at the gig itself, too. Their whole set was built on a kind of one-of-a-kind organic chemistry between the two sound manipulators and the drummer – it was honestly such an insane stylistic connection that I’ve never seen anything like it. Vitja and Boštjan often ran a heavily improvised atmosphere without any truly fixed common thread, but Bojan always, and I mean always, kept some completely nuts rhythm going, which the musicians then switched up several times – and it was always those jazzy »moves«, unconventional rhythms, anything that just isn’t 4/4. That fusion of electronic ambient and Bojan’s drumming style is something unbelievable above all, two such specific styles merging into something new and different.
The fact is, then, that Litošt make a really intelligent mass of sound that simply can’t be pinned down easily. And not because of some eclecticism of countless genres, but simply because this music is so different. Not that Litošt need some heavy-duty label. It would be easy to say jazz fusion, where the fusion hides quite a few electronic subgenres, while the jazz sort of lands on the whole feel you get from hearing the material live, mostly thanks to the drumming. It would be just as easy to simply say experimental music and leave it at that, letting listeners interpret it for themselves. So this is the point to stop with the shallow labeling attempts. Litošt is a band that actually brings something new to the Slovenian scene. Something we haven’t seen for a long time, and not only that – Litošt are something we’ve never seen at all, and not just here at home. And if you get the chance, check them out live – energy is the band’s middle name.
Even though Litošt started in front of an almost empty Menza and finished in front of a packed one, they impressed so much that the expectations for The Soft Moon ended up (way too) high. So I won’t say the Americans disappointed, far from it – but they were, well, ordinary. Nothing special. Definitely not the band or the thing I’ll remember this night for.
The Soft Moon are an extremely interesting project, by the way – they blend a bunch of the more interesting alternative genres of the 1980s: post-punk, shoegaze, coldwave, etc. Despite leaning hard on those genres, they’ve still (just recently) made a name for themselves as seekers of new, interesting sounds, which is where the band’s biggest experimentation comes from. And they definitely have their »sound« down – no debate there. So many attractive, completely contemporary, never-before-heard sounds (which you could say to some extent about Litošt too) are hard, if not impossible, to hear in a single night. The band also has a very polished show, a very well-oiled performance. But that night The Soft Moon weren’t really on the stage of Menza pri koritu. They were like a concert recording, like a staged music video, like a hologram of a dead performer. An apathetic set where the energy came only from tightness and routine, an impersonal show where the band came only for the encore, not for the experience. The length of the concert, which I’m not sure even topped an hour, certainly added to that impression.
The birth of Litošt pretty much cancelled out the whole (somewhat meh) experience with The Soft Moon. So the night wasn’t about a more or less watered-down set from the American post-punkers. It was the start of something one-of-a-kind, something encouraging for the Slovenian music scene. We came to the show for The Soft Moon and kept the ticket stub for Litošt.
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