Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Čas, Sergej
Label: Self-released
Release: 2016
Running time: 47:48
Rating: 4/5
With his first solo studio record, Sergej Čas finally joins the wide world of Slovenian singer-songwriters. He’s a seasoned musician from Semič in Bela krajina who sang in Desert Fox between 1990 and 2004 and was the band’s creative engine. The band put out the album Obstoj and played major festivals all over Slovenia, and after the group split, Sergej worked for a while as a duo with guitarist Miran Jelenič. And now, at long last, we’ve got Sergej’s first studio album: twelve original songs, plus two reworked versions of the originals, one in Russian and one in English, as a bonus.
Sergej Čas’s studio debut, titled »Kozmonavt«, shows that these ideas were brewing for a long time, and that the man really hunted for the right moment for each song, the moment when the creative wave hits and the best ideas for musical expression come to a boil. In terms of production and arrangement, the compositions on »Kozmonavt« are polished and detailed with an exceptional touch of filigree finesse. Every one of them carries a bigger or smaller dash of pop catchiness, and these sensual, richly layered songs develop an extremely musical hookiness at the same time. In that sense, Resnica, Reka and Vrač are the album’s moments that could spin around the clock on the most-listened-to radio frequencies of Slovenian mid-stream pop. Though cut from a different cloth, the album comes close in energy and vibe to, say, Bort Rosso’s »Sancho Pansa«.
The album highlights Sergej’s multilayered musical craftsmanship and insight. »Kozmonavt« is also a textbook singer-songwriter album of Slovenian stock, one where feeling comes front and center and where the Slovenian language couldn’t blend better with the music, giving the deeply meaningful poetry of Sergej Čas its optimal effect. So feeling takes the lead, and Sergej proves a true vocal acrobat of sensitive adaptability, with no room for holding back on emotion and passion. The album carries an unconcealed note of personal confession. It’s steeped in melancholy, and the lyrics add to that with experiences of false loves (Rad bi te čakal) and friendships (Nizki udarci) that bring disappointment, and there’s also a barbed jab at the fashionable spiritual and moral plundering of this truly orphaned and empty society of the “modern world” (Tvoj sovražnik si ti).
Since Sergej is a perfectionist, every song on this album works as a finished whole and a story of its own. He colors the arrangements by building in different compositional impulses and approaches, and that gets him the dynamic he wants, with the moods shifting across the record. You can hear it in the melancholic wheeze of the accordion on the opener Rad bi te čakal, and in the waves of synthesizers that rise, distant yet mysterious, over a landscape of mostly acoustic guitar tones. The title track is the album’s real oddball, arranged as a laid-back, barely perceptible rhythmic rattle. It’s easy to picture yourself in the suit of a cosmonaut drifting toward his planet. I can actually hear that rhythm as the ticking of a clock, as Sergej addresses it, or just as the in-out breathing of this mysterious planet where Sergej is trying to land and find self-fulfillment, a kind of salvation. Claustrophobia and loneliness are what drive him there. In the gorgeous Reka, female backing vocals join Sergej’s voice in the catchy chorus, a fitting contrast, and the song develops a distinct touch of mysticism. That very mix of melancholy and longing, in the luxury of contrasting arrangements of sonic landscapes, alongside Sergej’s expressive voice, summons a concise hint of mystique that runs through most of this gorgeous and deeply sensual album.
»Kozmonavt« is a gorgeous, fully realized confessional statement from Sergej Čas. It’s an album of concise touches and strokes of filigree sonic and compositional detail, with strong, clearly tangible messages delivered without pretension. It delivers its powerful, confessional content subtly, yearningly, gently and softly. That’s exactly why it grabs you with full force and, in its sincere sophistication, wins you over in an instant. An album that will lull you into a dream, but “shake” you at the same time.
Sergej Čas – Rad bi te čakal:
Lineup
Sergej Čas – vocals
Miran Jelenič – guitar, dobro
Zed Smon – guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums, programming
Helena Konda – backing vocals
Martina Konda – backing vocals
Andrej Plut – accordion
Production
Zed Smon
Track list
1. Rad bi te čakal
2. Važno, da nekdo spi
3. Kozmonavt
4. Ljubim te
5. Reka
6. Nizki udarci
7. Resnica
8. Nocoj bom
9. Vrač
10. Tvoj sovražnik si ti
11. Dvigni glavo
12. Kaj ostalo je
13. Kocmohabt (Russian version of Kozmonavt)
14. I’d Like to Wait for you (English version of Rad bi te čakal)
