Discipline, Ljubljana Style

Just over two weeks ago, the bricks in Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna were being shaken loose by the Serbian avant-garde drum’n’bass rockers Disciplin A Kitschme, who kept the provocative Limited concert series rolling. The Eventim crew brought this dose of low-frequency rumble and exploding drums to the capital. After the success of the Partibrejkers show and an almost sold-out hall, they were counting on a repeat with the Belgrade trio, and they could once again rub their hands over ticket sales, because the hall, planned for a maximum of 800 tickets, sold out again. But let’s take it from the top.

The day started like every other day of this gorgeous May. The forecast for the afternoon was a little less promising, threatening a few drops of rain, but that was never going to stop a devoted, determined rocker who needs a little sentimental trip back in time. In fact, that’s exactly what all the Limited shows have been so far: a sentimental journey into the past, reviving memories of a bygone, or rather recently bygone, era. The doors of Cvetličarna swung wide open a little after half past eight this time too, and the crowds, hungry for a spectacle and thirsty for their pints, poured into the half-darkened hall. A handful of Yugo-nostalgic hits, a chat with buddies from student days, and some 600 fans or a bit more were there to welcome the return of Dušan Kojić – Koja and his two bandmates.

In the eighties he defined the sound of Yugoslav post-rock and, above all, new wave. The nineties brought tectonic shifts, in ideas and in creativity alike. Seeking refuge from the Balkan carnage (and madness), he settled in the UK, and in Great Britain Disciplina Kičme turned into a spin-off for the English-speaking crowd. In 1996 in London, Koja revived a band called Disciplin A Kitschme, a band that explores the underground dance scene, experiments with trance, throws in jungle sounds, and does it all without any extra modern gear or electronics. The bass is the main weapon, the drum’n’bass structure is rounded out by drums and female vocals. With their iron-clad repertoire they warmed up the Ljubljana crowd properly too, and after an initial melancholy, the crowd got into it and conjured up the good old days of the Yugoslav new wave, funk and punk. They kicked off the show with the song ‘Svi za mnom’ and carried on with hits from their various eras and records ( Najlepše pesmi, Najlepši zub na planetu dosade, Ove ruke nisu male 1). As they announced: old met new again. Today’s Disciplin a kitschme runs on the experience of the old lineup and the fresh energy it unleashes at its shows, no matter what language the songs are performed in. In fact, it was pretty hard to tell what they were actually singing, since the sound at this show was anything but brilliant. The rumbling bass and the wild drum rhythms drowned out the fragile vocals of the young Belgrade singer Manja, who tried in vain to match the vocal range of her English counterpart (the one Koja worked with during his stay in England). And back in the frontman’s spot was, who else: Koja (a.k.a. Zeleni zub). A bit more reserved in his banter with the crowd, he played through his set, but the crowd clearly didn’t mind. The indifference of the opening stretch evaporated like a soap bubble somewhere past the halfway point of the set, and soon I was witnessing near-rave ecstasy. One kind of peak was the eruptive version of ‘Političari virusi’, while for me personally the songs that treated my eardrums more gently were ‘Noize In Fashion’, ‘Ti znaš da tvoja soba ima četiri ugla’, ‘Zgodne kretnje’ and the extended version of ‘Bedroom muzik’. Definitely groovy, but too undefined for me to call it one of my favorite shows I’ve ever been to. Maybe also because Koja was cynically and sarcastically hoisted onto the pedestal of his own self-confidence, where there’s no room for thanking the crowd, which was, once again, disciplined and open to manipulation. So much so that I got the feeling they didn’t care at all what was happening on stage. And what was happening was standing around and a fight against dreadful sound. Indifference toward the barren results was what filled my thoughts between the lines. And the hunt for immersion was soon over. After twenty-five songs, after an eternity of noise with no real form, the big finale arrived, a quick thanks, a bit of chanting and one encore. Then “Fala lepo!” and off the stage. The lights come on and the thirsty head off to the after party, where they could destroy a few more glasses of beer, though there’s no point wasting words on the next morning’s headache anyway…

Organization-wise, the show ran smoothly and without a hitch, and the organizers deserve all the praise. A somewhat shorter list of compliments goes to the sound engineer this time, who, clumsy and unfamiliar with Cvetličarna, butchered the sound from the first track to the last, and for that he definitely deserves applause – or maybe that was the whole point… Zeleni zub, Manja and Buca left a lukewarm feeling, despite their pioneering spirit and experimentation. There was maybe a bit too much of that for my taste. The dose of “pure rock’n’roll” was on the stingy side, but you know how it goes: to each their own. I’m betting I was one of the few who would file this show under digestible rather than spectacular. Next time I’d rather catch them somewhere further south, at Exit, armed with a proper dose of maligans…