Artist: Hiša
Label: ZKP RTV Slovenija
Release: 2006
Another peak moment for Slovenian music
The band Hiša from Trbovlje is one of the rare phoenixes rising from the ashes of Slovenian music, but sadly, with every record, no matter how great, they get overlooked. And if we consider that the guys are officially in their thirteenth year, with eight releases behind them – one of them a live album recorded at the concert for Neil Young’s 50th birthday and one a greatest-hits collection, which still leaves an impressive six albums! And if we consider that outside of Hiša they can also perform as Peaceful Riders, Bluesteam or Sinthome, that they remembered Neil Young for his 60th birthday too and put together Illusion Anyway 2, that their second album ‘neskončna pot’ also exists in a complete English-language recording, and that I have no doubt Andrej Guček already has a ton of new stories in his head.
After their previous studio album ‘Silicijevo nebo’ I felt the band had hit their peak, and I think the same after every one of their bigger gigs, and every time I’m left speechless. Some of the songs from ‘Za en dotik’ – ‘Pale sam na svetu’, ‘Galeb’, ‘Težek zrak’, ‘Ljubezen za denar’, ‘Sončen dan’ – we’d already heard in one version or another at some of the band’s shows.
This past fall we were chatting with friends about some albums that were already out and some we were impatiently waiting for, and the conversation drifted to the much-praised album ‘Unca Fibre’ by the super-popular Gibonni. An album where the stories still sort of hold up, but the instrumental backing is so stretched out and impossibly drawn-out that it’s a pain to listen to. Yet absolutely all my conversation partners insisted in unison how carefully and thoughtfully Gibonni crafts his lyrics, how anyone can find themselves in them, how great and excellent and unbeatable he is… And quite a few of them laughed at me when I pointed them to Hiša’s upcoming album and the truly deep stories from Andrej Guček’s pen. And you know what? After listening to the record several times now, I can only say – Gibonni, hide! If he didn’t have past successes and a publishing machine behind him, ‘Unca Fibre’ would get spat on and the concerts would be cancelled.
On to the record, or rather the eleven tracks on it…
‘Na klopi’ rests on a gorgeous Young-style guitar riff, a very laid-back track with, of course, a superb lyric, a harmonized chorus and a slightly dirty guitar solo. ‘Fatamorgana Blues’ is, as the title says, bluesy, the voice is a bit distorted, there’s often group singing too, and the track is properly spiced up by an excellent solo, and it’s full of refined guitar touches in general.
The first peak of the record is definitely ‘Pale sam na svetu’, a tender, mostly piano-driven track that’s slightly reminiscent of ‘Spomin na maj’, and for its skeleton it uses both the fairy tale ‘Pale sam na svetu’ (which, by the way, Johnny Štulić also adores) and Young’s song ‘Sugar Mountain’, where they deftly “adapted” the line “You can’t be twenty on Sugar Mountain” into “You can’t be forty on the Sugar Mountain”. Cheeky… Beyond that, there’s an interesting piano passage, a harmonica solo, a chorus sung by the whole band, and an excellent, building string finale. As they used to say back in the day – an A with a dash???
‘Sprememba’, with its rhythmically lively vocal part, will remind many a devoted fan of the track ‘Trenutki’ from their debut, and otherwise it’s a slightly jazz-tinged track, with refined guitar work and a saxophone solo. ‘Novo življenje’ is very easygoing, full of small rhythmic shifts, with piano and cymbal accents and, once again, refined guitars; after the chorus comes an unexpectedly explosive guitar solo and a fully vocal ending. Magnificent, no doubt about it!
Next up, maybe even the peak of peaks, is the track ‘Galeb’. Andrej Guček has already created a heap of excellent and unforgettable songs in his life, but with this one he has surpassed even himself! A sensual interpretation backed mostly by acoustic guitar, with strings joining the instrumental fabric in the background, and overall a track you could most simply describe as minimalist greatness!
‘Za en dotik’ is a typical Hiša song – an acoustic start, the lead voice acting as its own rhythm, then rich backing vocals and a truly full chorus, and for good measure a dramatic transition into the last verse. Unusual, but perhaps it’s the track with the most “flaws” – toward the end it drags a bit and finishes in a worn-out (and, I hope, never to be revived) fade-out fashion.
‘Sončen dan’ is special mainly because of the feelings it stirred in me, as I felt like I was listening to the melancholy confession of a disabled man who, on a gorgeous sunny day, is trapped in his own apartment, confined to a wheelchair, looking out the window and watching the lively goings-on of the outside world. A very calm song, with piano, building up and with layered vocals through the chorus…
‘Ljubezen za denar’ also belongs in the category of unbeatable tracks – again with a Young-style guitar riff, very punchy and extremely dynamic, with interesting vocal transitions and a refined solo, the lead-in to the chorus builds every time, and at the end the track unexpectedly calms down and wraps up in a way that is – given the rest of its structure – unpredictable and unusual.
‘Modro nebo’ is another one of those calmer tracks where the piano dominates, where we hear plenty of jazzy cymbal accents and the whole lineup shines vocally. The record also closes in a somewhat calmer way, with the track ‘Težek zrak’ – a slow, confessional song accompanied by piano and strings, with backing vocals interestingly embellishing some of the closing lines, and even the solo is string-based for a change, with a bit of building at the end. As if they wanted to say they haven’t said their last word yet, as if they’d put three dots at the end of a sentence?!
In their rich career, Hiša have had only one bad – conditionally bad – moment, and that was the album ‘Nevarna razmerja’, which simply didn’t work as a whole and wandered between individual gems; otherwise, with every record they outdo themselves. Some accuse them of reinventing the wheel, of imitating the sound of the “west coast” scene too faithfully… maybe so, but Hiša (or rather Andrej Guček) write their lyrics with devotion and a lot of warmth, and make their music extremely spontaneously, and that’s exactly where the secret of their sometimes hard-to-explain appeal lies. For me personally, in the musical world they stand for everything that sincere love and rare friends stand for in my world – something that is simply inexplicable and mysterious and magical. Something that I personally know is the one true and irreplaceable thing!
Lineup
Andrej Guček – lead vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica
Martin Koncilja – vocals, acoustic guitar
Vili Guček – vocals, bass
Iztok Pepelnjak – vocals, drums, percussion
GUESTS:
Primož Fleischman -saxophone
Miloš Simić – violin
Bojan Cvetrežnik – violin
Zoltan Kvanka – viola
Tamara Đorđević – cello
Arrangements: Hiša
String arrangements: Miloš Simić
Production
Andrej Guček
Track list
1. Na klopi
2. Fatamorgana blues
3. Pale sam na svetu
4. Sprememba
5. Novo življenje
6. Galeb
7. Za en dotik
8. Sončen dan
9. Ljubezen za denar
10. Modro nebo
11. Težek zrak
