Label: Self-released
Release date: 21.06.2019
Producer: Peter Penko
Album length: 37.59 min
Genre: pop / art / folk
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Indigo is a band that follows a musical vision of blending pop, electronics and traditional collages of Slovenian folk melos, which add a pinch of richness to the band’s sonic language. Indigo laid that out with the bold debut »Drugačna« (2013), and now they build on it and push it further on the new studio album »Nikrmana«. The first major change is that the band is carrying on without guitars. Six years passed between the albums, and that’s a long time. Long enough for an act to completely flip its musical character, until it’s barely recognizable in what it’s expressing. Well, Indigo didn’t go down the road of total transformation like, say, Neomi did, but still. Between »Drugačna« and »Nikrmana« there’s a real gap in sound and arrangement.
The band has an innate (internalized) feel for tight, polished arrangements. The songs are pop at their core and hit you instantly. Right away. Light, relaxed, but always precisely measured moves of fine-tuned craft, merging delicate pastels and sonic collages that build the structure of the songs, with simple rhythms in the background, which, as said, don’t take much effort to get under your skin in no time. A band that’s knocking hard on the radio’s door, and because of that we’ve already been treated to a horde of released singles. The band’s decision to cover Tih deževen dan by 1 X Bend (the famous pick for the Slovenian Eurovision song contest in 1993) deepens that, and for the occasion the song has been stripped bare, breathing new life into itself in a completely reworked arrangement, where modern electronic music tricks take over.
Anja Pavlin is an extremely important element as a vocalist, her gentle, tender and wonderfully pleasant vocal tone deepening the esoteric effect of the whisper-soft pastels of the sonic landscape, which evokes feelings of psychedelia and transcendence and can gratefully lure you into a dreamy, easygoing relaxation. In that respect, and for getting the most out of this element, the album’s title track surely takes first place, alongside the excellent opener Škržati. But Maj Valerij’s vocals (e.g. Leio) pull their weight too, with an equally beautiful natural timbre that speaks directly to the listener. The two lead vocals, in a male-female interplay, often flow into each other compatibly in duets, which gives the band a pleasing contrast between points. Vesna develops in a really neat way, with the playful touch of “Bela Krajina folklore” from Katice (a female vocal group) added in the closing section. One of the highlights is definitely the combination of Anja’s vocals with those of Marina Martesson (a member of Laibach) in the song Vem kan segla forutan vind. The Swedish musical artist with Slovenian roots joins the song by singing Slovenian verses, while Anja tries her hand at Swedish. A winning combination of two striking singers, or rather voices.
The band prefers to use the axiom “less is more” in its arranging, rather than weigh the structure of the songs down with either “extra decibels” or complex structures that could rob them of fluidity, or rather of the dynamic flow of gradually shifting moods that reach their dramatic peaks in the chorus melodies.
An album that surpasses the debut in maturity, is also exceptionally musical, and in that respect sounds plenty “Lower Carniolan” too. Lower Carniola, after all, can boast quite a number of acts with an outstanding sense for crafting melodies that easily get along with the principles of healthy middle-of-the-road music (mainstream), as far as that can be detected on Slovenian radio (well, at least at night, if you happen to be unable to sleep), and Indigo easily rank among them. »Nikrmana« is therefore a really lovely new release from Indigo and one of the higher-quality achievements in Slovenian mainstream for 2019.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Škržati
2. Vesna
3. Ajdovska
4. Kresnice / Tam
5. Vem kan segla forutan vind
6. Tih deževen dan
7. Nikrmana
8. Leio
9. Hrasti
10. Stroj
Line-up:
Anja Pavlin – vocals, keyboards
Maj Valerij – vocals, saxophone
Anže Čuček – bass guitar
Peter Penko – programming
