Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Hexenbrutal
Label: god bless this mess records
Release: 2015
Rating: 4/5
Hexenbrutal are no longer an unknown quantity in the Slovenian alternative rock underground. Ten years of existence, two studio albums, and a pile of gigs across Europe’s club circuits, which the duo of Hexen and Brutal have combed up, down and sideways. In the fall of 2013, a chance came up for Hexenbrutal to play on the show Izštekani on Val 202. The industrial noise racket that had more or less defined most of the band’s original output up to that point was swapped for an unplugged version. Given the roar and drone the duo is known for, that left plenty of room for guessing what kind of musical provocation Hexenbrutal were cooking up.
The unplugged variation proved to be a successful experiment, and the band decided to repeat the experience on February 22, 2014, at the MIKK club in Murska Sobota. So, on home turf. In a new, more intimate version. The duo called in Miha Kavaš for the job. He’s a guy who’s also a member of Ethnotrip and Mlada beltinška banda. And so the band logically grew into a trio.
With Miha Kavaš on board, Hexenbrutal’s music picks up new dimensions. It widens and refines the expressive range of the band’s whole musical dossier. It’s no longer a mystery that the music latches onto a touch of the traditional folk heritage of Prekmurje. The violin, and the accordion too, wail »Gypsy style«, and that’s nothing unusual when you consider what kind of musical background Miha Kavaš comes from. So the music gets a recognizable ethno flavor. The aforementioned repetitive post-rock introspection that this live document carries, with all the extra percussion effects and the free-flowing release of sonic makeup (sampling, saw,…), breeds a new kind of musicality that coaxes out the softer, intimately inward-looking face of the musicians. It also deepens the moods of dark vistas, that typical melancholy hanging over the Prekmurje plains. I’d even dare to suggest, to a degree, that a combination of this unplugged Hexenbrutal variation and ŠKM Banda would make an ideal pair for a joint tour.
Miha Kavaš has effectively taken over the central role of delivering the lead melodies. In the motif structures of the freshened-up arrangements, he gets a huge amount of room to really stretch out on his violin and accordion, as an improviser too. Every single song gets a post-rock look in its new arrangement hairdo. The motifs work in sequences of multi-minute repetitions, while Hexenbrutal create and hold a »trip-iodic« atmosphere, which you can only step into if you completely switch off your reason and logic and spontaneously surrender to the unique musical experience the trio takes you on. And they actually pulled that off with the crowd at MIKK. The trio somehow »educationally hushes« them. The only thing you can hear is applause between songs, with no other »racket« that the audience might accidentally set off. So the trip is on! A trip that effectively and successfully sucks the listener into a world all its own.
Lineup
Iztok Koren – drums, guitar, “looper”
Matej Kolmanko – piano, guitar, percussion, accordion, balonofon, harmonica
Miha Kavaš – violin, accordion, saw, ocarina, toy piano, castanets, “looper”, “interroom”
Production
Plueg
Track list
1. Intro (05:46)
2. Loboto (02:11)
3. Sodomajzer (04:02)
4. Monument (03:58)
5. Drumtree (09:33)
6. Boejc (04:02)
7. Tobari 2 (03:41)
8. All is Silent, All is Dead (06:07)
9. Jesus is My Tintenkiller (02:26)
10. 16 (11:00)
