Artist: Kreslin, Vlado
Release: 2007
1/3 forever and back on the road. Even though Kreslin’s travels no longer uncover a brand-new world the way Kerouac’s heroes did on the road, and he sticks more and more to that quiet road where Joužek is waiting, some of the adventurous spirit has stayed anyway. If until now he mostly wandered somewhere between Šiška, via the Mura and the Drava, to the sea and the sky, this time he even set off for black Africa, as he sings in the title track (Cesta): “Beyond the road there are places, that’s where the Maasai live.” And Africa has clearly given him a fresh charge, because after a four-year break he’s back in form, with songs cut from classic Kreslin cloth. Still, he’d rather stay a bit closer to home, on the local roads, on the Goričko – Piran route. But that’s mostly when he’s solo: with Neisha at his side he gladly strolls all the way to the Milky Way (Kakor zvezdi na nebu), and with Severa (Gjurin) he goes even further, all the way to the other world, hoping life will be (even) better there (Abel & Kajn). Maybe life will be better there, but there’s no point speculating about that here and now. Nobody knows whether they even have roads somewhere out there, either. What we do know is what they’re like down here, and when two or more of them meet, they form a crossroads – and Križišča (Crossroads) is the title of the album’s second part, where Vlado gathered the tunes he contributed to various musicians he’s worked with lately, songs that had never met before, so carefully collected under one name. So it’s a collection of songs written in different periods, with different lineups, on wildly different occasions. They sit shoulder to shoulder: Glej, vlak se vije, written in collaboration with Aleksander Ipavec for Martina Repinc’s documentary …San sanju, de pride en dan…, three folk songs made with Zuf De Žur, aka Bališ, and two more contemporary compositions: the first, Njen trenutek prihaja, is a cover of a Kreslin hit from his earlier days, taken from Neisha’s debut album, and the hit he got Dražen Turina-Šajeta to help him sing, Rulet.
Why they went with this setup isn’t known; maybe there was simply too little new, varied material for Cesta to stand on its own two feet as a longer record, and Križišča serves as a bonus to the regular edition… Either way, Cesta as a whole (including Križišča) is a fine example of how a song stays the same at its core: people change, the people around them change, times change, but Vlado musically stays right where he’s always felt best. His moment was once coming, and it came, and it stayed. Forever and aware and.
With Cesta, just like with Generacija, Ptič and the rest before it, it’s mostly about a process of inner travel, one that’s fairly in tune with itself and with the outside world, even if life is nowhere near delivering some of the answers, or at least not the ones he wanted. These are creative wellsprings that have swapped the town crier’s voice for subtle whispering. The social action he once took part in on purpose, as an enlightened activist who had plenty to say in his spring years, has given way to an autumn of existential questions and a time of hoping for redemption. At the crossroads of catharsis, carrying on the tradition and new questions.
Sure, there’s never a shortage of questions, if anything there are more of them, and tradition is something he knows very well, so the biggest question mark on this road remains that unheard unrest which, every now and then, still screams pretty damn loud.
Or maybe all the answers really are to be found in the grove where the cuckoo sings its song? Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo cuckoo.
Lineup
CESTA
Vlado Kreslin: Vocals, acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica
Miro Tomassini: Electric and acoustic guitar, mandolin, electric bass
Gal Gjurin: Hammond, acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass, double bass, cello, bouzouki, Rhodes, accordion, harmonium, piano, programming
Iztok Cergol: Violin
Neža Buh – Neisha: Piano, vocals (#7)
Severa Gjurin: Vocals (#5)
Mario Marolt: Sax (#7)
Andraž Mazi: Electric guitar, lapsteel
Matjaž Poravne: Violin (#7)
Gašper Peršl: Drums (#2 & 8)
Sergej Randjelović – Runjoe: Drums, percussion (#3 & 4)
Vocals by:
Jana Beltran, Gal Gjurin, Severa Gjurin, Velemir Gjurin, Daša Gradišek, Matjaž Jakin, Naj Kreslin, Čarna Kreslin, Vlado Kreslin, Dejan Lapanja, Oskar Longyka, Gašper Peršl, Ivan Šček, Miro Tomassini, Blaž Učakar and Nada Vodušek
KRIŽIŠČA
Aleksander Ipavec: Accordion (#10)
Paola Chiabudini: Piano (#10)
Davide Casali: Clarinet (#10)
Neisha: Vocals, piano, Rhodes (#14)
Matej Mršnik: Guitar (#14)
Tadej Kampl: Double bass (#14)
Žiga Kožar: Drums (#14)
Gal Gjurin: Trumpet (#14)
Mitja Kavčič: Hammond (#14)
Neža & Darja Drobnič: Backing vocals (#14)
Elvis Stanič: Guitar (#15)
Production
Gal Gjurin
Track list
CESTA
01. Kuku
02. Cesta
03. Z Goričkega v Piran
04. V parku za gradom
05. Abel in Kajn
06. Dokler se srce ne ustavi
07. Kakor zvezdi na nebu
08. Novo, novejše, najnovejše
KRIŽIŠČA
09. Magdalenca
10. Glej vlak se vije
11. Rož, Podjuna, Zila
12. La Brigata Garibaldi
13. Bella ciao
14. Njen trenutek prihaja
15. Rulet
Album length: 60:39
