Label: Menart Records
Release date: December 22, 2017
Production: Ivansson
EP length: 27:05 min
Genre: Hard Rock / Art Rock
The EP “Gotcha!” is Ivansson’s opening career move onto the international rock ‘n’ roll scene. Ivansson is none other than Jernej Zoran, a Slovenian through and through, who has been devoted to carving out his own solo musical path for quite a while now. The refined guitarist, arranger, producer and composer from Dolenjska, a former member of DMP, has added three exceptionally beautiful and splendid solo studio releases, a.k.a. albums, to his discography in recent years, all of which came out between 2012 – 2017. Anyone who knows them knows they’re mostly vocal albums, but they also feature instrumental tracks where Zoran’s guitar language and the character of his playing take absolute center stage.
With “Gotcha!”, Jernej now steps onto the international music scene under the moniker Ivansson. For the EP he picked six instrumental tracks, tweaked their titles a bit, “packaged” them skillfully and offered them to the music crowd, and the EP is already getting enthusiastic feedback from foreign music critics.
What Ivansson has done with this EP is a question that had been nagging the author of this review for quite a while, too: “Why on earth doesn’t the good man release a fully instrumental rock album, on which his guitar “bibliography of six-string theory” would really get to shine?” And that’s exactly what the EP “Gotcha!” delivers. Jernej loaded it with instrumental tracks marked by layered, dynamic compositional chops, which only confirms how conceptually high-caliber Zoran’s musical artistry is and how finely honed his musical vision.
That Jernej is a huge fan of rock and blues is no news. On “Gotcha!” too you can sense the influence of the guitar masters from the great days of rock pioneering, and in Jernej’s playing you can’t miss the echoes of David Gilmour and Jeff Beck, to name just two owners of that elemental softness, the kind you get from the fine mechanics of guitar-hand skills, with which they changed the musical world forever. And Jernej has that touch. He has his own guitar touch, and his Telecaster wails passionately, sensually, with a burning glow. Heartfelt and real! So it’s not all about the “gear”. What matters is the touch, the feel that gives off a vibration with which a musician stirs and awakens the listener’s emotions. And Jernej has that essential element and handles it with great skill.
The cover art captures Ivansson and one of his life philosophies. It’s about the ethos of total freedom in rock ‘n’ roll! On the cover there are two birds (symbols of freedom, honesty, truthfulness) perched on a power line (symbolizing electric music – rock)! So: create freely! What defines Jernej’s musical expression is his elemental, innate sense for the incredible aesthetics of placing notes whether in solo excursions or in shaping guitar embellishments, which he lays over phrases and passages with careful deliberation and a deeply sensitive compatibility. In this musical world of his, Ivansson manages to be almost rudimentarily, abrasively rock, instantly grabbing the listener’s attention with the EP’s opening title track, or mystical, as Special Swedish Steel vividly conjures, where Jernej set an arrangement of vocal harmonies behind his outstanding guitar soloing, which in melody, intonation and color remind you incredibly of the territory of Pink Floyd arrangements. Jernej never runs out of dynamite in his fingers, and the tracks, one after another, impress in their own right. In other words, these are six self-contained stories that were tempered and filed down over a long time, and so they’re optimally “chiseled” and “polished”. Wrapped in a musical dossier that stretches from classic hard rock and elements of blues aesthetics to soulful excursions into a world beyond the real, where the musician creates moods of dreamy mysticism, achieved through exceptionally tender softness and sensitivity in the laying down of notes.
That’s it. Let yourself be seduced by this excellent all-instrumental EP, full of hot-blooded guitar rock brilliance and compositional perfection. Let’s hope it opens the door for Ivansson to march onto the wide European stages.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 10 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Gotcha!
2. Special Swedis hSteel
3. Chemtrailin’ (Thngs Are Not What They Seem)
4. Monsanto Baby Blues
5. Brave New World?
6. Thingamabob
Lineup:
Jernej Zoran – guitar, bass guitar
Miha Recelj – drums
