Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Sedmak, Bojan
Label: Akord Records
Release: year
Rating: 4/5
Bojan Sedmak is an imprint of time and place, coming from the eastern end of Slovenia, his native Styria. Over the years, and right up to today, Maribor has remained in many ways his elemental creative starting point and inspiration. Bojan Sedmak is a singer-songwriter. His artistic streak isn’t limited to churning out musically trivial little songs built on three or four chords, whose core message is carried by poetry that’s rich in meaning and well salted, a highly intellectual reflection on the goings-on in the reality of our brave new world. The man has also, in the past, effectively dived into other creative spheres and merged with the character of some theater stage scripts as well as films.
The album »Z nosilca na nosilec« counts as a kind of historic music document, since it collects tracks recorded straight off the radio airwaves, from the broadcast of the first concert version of the project Rokerji pojejo pesnike, on that long-ago day of 13.06.1996, onto a cassette recorder. Archived like that, the recordings, in their restrained sound quality (despite the lo-fi production), kept enough appeal to be released later in the form of this CD (and also a vinyl record!!!). Alongside these live radio recordings come some »demo« recordings that Sedmak caught on a cassette recorder at home, in the middle of a living-room performance. Stripped bare. Just voice and the sound of an acoustic guitar accompaniment. These also come from a similar period, so all the songs speak to each other effectively in the energy of their interpretation and the creative inspiration they capture. That’s why the album feels »unified« and compact, since the substance on it is incredibly approachable throughout.
With charming, brilliant poetry, through which Sedmak lifts the veil on the hardships of our everyday life in a totally unobtrusive, unpretentious, at times playful, but also more direct or even rough-edged way, this document also embodies a high degree of musicality, delivering to this release 13 quickly winnable, ear-friendly singer-songwriter stories. Performance slips and unpleasant mishaps, like chords struck a bit »thinner« at times, or strings sloppily fretted, don’t matter, because the focus of the product is taken over by the interpretation itself, by Bojan Sedmak’s soulful sensuality, which effectively brings to life the concise point of the poetry’s message. It isn’t entirely his own work: some of the lyrics, to which Sedmak attached his own musical arrangement, originally belong to Gregor Strniša, Janez Menart, Brako Rudolf and Andrej Rozman – Roza.
Sedmak never runs out of things to say. He’s deep into it the whole way through, as through his solid poetry, well-read and intricately woven, he strings together vivid stories full of truthful, rapt attention. Always suitably seductive and captivating, also playful, lucid and witty. The content of this release definitely carries historic value. It offers a glimpse into what Sedmak put out on the album »Mešano na žarkih«, so we can understand it as a developmental link leading up to that album. It also carries value as the first officially documented recording of the Rokerji pojejo pesnike series, which in later years achieved a generally recognized stature, breadth and standing in the Slovenian cultural and artistic scene!
Lineup
Bojan Sedmak – vocals, guitar
Robert Jurič – piano on tracks 8 and 9
Track List
1. Piti in peti
2. Razjahaj, bejbi
3. Če bil bi / Pajac
4. Meje
5. Pridi, greva nekaj spit
6. Razvratni Čuri Muri
7. Lopovi
8. Maribor pa pa
9. Leno popoldne
10. Balada o bibi
11. Vlak
12. Norci in otroci
13. Ladjica
