Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Venue: Gala Hala Metelkova
Concert date: 18.05.2012
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: €7 / €10 on the day of the show
After the opening year on Kapa’s winding path of musical pleasure, every step higher and further is a pipe dream, and peaks are hard to top. But does the theory survive in practice? Putting it mildly – ever since I tasted the juiciness of Moveknowledgement, Red Five Point Star and We Can’t Sleep At Night on the Gala Hala stage three, sorry – already four years ago, every further wish to repeat that same dose of adrenaline has been a lot like chasing the unattainable ecstasy of that first perfect nirvana feeling, which just never shows up. Still, with reined-in appetites and a realistic, moderate pessimism, I made it to the day when all I could do was shut up and stone every last one of my pessimistic vignettes of know-it-all arrogance, with the ammo supplied, of course, by the newly assembled elite of the Slovenian alternative scene. There was truly nothing to fault the event for – or, let’s be honest and stay a little critical, almost nothing.
After a grueling work week, a little release under the open-air stage of Gala Hala really hits the spot, and in the hope that the promise of fresh air would be kept, our small but always challenge-hungry (and thirsty) crew set off for the temple of alternative orgasms. The lineup promised a Styrian-all-Slovenian alliance called Coma Stereo, the onstage debauchery of faded punks going by the name Buldogi, and the fresh sensation BeatMyth, in which the oratorical mastermind of Moveknowledgement intellectually cleanses his throat chakras. The rest of the evening was more or less a big riddle. Right up until Friday, the bill had two names on it: the completely anonymous and truly subversive Ludovik Material, and the enigmatic surprise of the night, billed as a brand-new signing to the Kapa label. Judging by the existing roster of names and styles that have found a home under Kapa’s roof, we could have been in for pure pleasure and the big names of the Slovenian scene, or for total subversion and some truly spiritual record that would leave you with two options: fall into a coma, or open your veins and cut your suffering short in the hope of salvation. And yet – Kapa has rarely disappointed so far. Anything was possible, and even with the cards on the table, the evening was anything but predetermined and clear.
The first disappointment hit like a bolt from the blue. Since Ljubljana in May is usually suddenly too cold for camping out under the open sky, the organizers moved the whole thing inside to the cramped Gala Hala, which is often too small as it is. Despite our fears, the start was marked by a shortage of dance floor and a deficit of properly committed alternative crowd. At nine, or just a bit past, the audience finally started squeezing into Gala and claiming the safe corners by the bar, while the braver ones kept a safe distance from the stage and waited “cool” for the first act of the night. The ice of the Ljubljana May frost was broken first by the atypical alternative crew from Maribor and glorifiers of transgalactic rhythms, Coma Stereo. The first live contact with the band was like the rhythmic lapping of the nebulae of the seventies psychedelic gods Pink Floyd against the shores of post-rock calm of the likes of Tangerine Dream (with a whiff of ever-relevant Isis and Red Sparowes). The stage is taken, on the left, by the well-equipped-with-moogs-and-synths Sašo Stamatovski. The central podium belongs to a constellation of analog effects, in front of which steps the reserved guitarist Tomaž Kurež. The right side of the stage is held by the short-haired bassist Marko Širec, and in the back line the dreamy rhythm-meter Domen Repnik fills out the picture massively behind the drums. The first flight along the parabola of pleasure begins with the title track of their previous record, Transgalaktika, and the basic matrix of the night is set. Coma Stereo are cosmic riders of the post-rock apocalypse, and rather than clear, sharp lines, the sound is dominated by thick layers of colorful nebulae and effected strata of total sensuality. A combination of excessive delays, gentle distortions with plenty of echo, amorphous phasers and choruses turns the electric guitar into a six-string paintbrush that daubs the subtlety of an intercosmic whisper onto your ears, the synths only reinforce it, and the main contours of the action are woven around the framework of clean, dominant bass. Coma Stereo spin their shamanic continuation into Jasmin Starwars, an energetic follow-up to a slightly sleepy start. The bass groove and the beat of NoMeansNo-style drums. The squealing of effects and the dilapidated beauty of Sonic Youth guitars wake up the passions and shift the night into a higher gear. There are no vocals, and nobody misses them, and the sound, in some bizarre, obscure way, calls to mind a reworked post-rock version of Srečna Mladina. After those moments from the recent past comes the unveiling of Coma Stereo’s present with 1000 Mest. “I sing in the desert. / I draw the horizon. / A thousand cities,” is the haiku Tomaž delivers in an intense, confessional, purified way, and the narration, as if penned bitterly by surviving astronauts after the apocalypse, returns to the spheres of a seemingly chaotic past. Iskra brings Transgalaktika back to the present, after a brief jump into the former space-time continuum, and with Črna Jutra and Bogomila the more sinister face of the present-day outlines of the Thousand Cities creeps to the fore again. Coma Stereo sound like the exceptional soundtrack to some sixties sci-fi movie, and the music is at the same time more than suited to dancing and a total mental disconnect. After a short applause of awakening enthusiasm, the sweet tones of the divine Kristalni voz ring out of the speakers. Gentle presses on the keys raise the rhythm of the heartbeat, and the heart chakra is utterly dissolved by the sweet tapping of drums and hypnotic guitars. Hammonds weave in, building toward ever denser suspense in the Deep Purple manner, except that this time no guitar explosions of a thousand riffs are to be expected. To the sounds of these Maribor virtuosos of feeling, a new verse of the evening unfolds quite naturally in Vse misli so odveč. “Vse misli so odveč …” In my mind I drift so easily across the edges of the universe and cling to the veil of the gods, I could go on with this stream of thought, and I wouldn’t be lying a bit if I said I’d at least brushed against the nebula of divine greatness. But alas, faith fades and every good thing meets its end in a theatrical finish. Harakiri is the last moment of putting the feeling into words with mystical verses. “Nirvana is in the air. It circles above the Earth. It waits for eternity. Has anyone told it there’s too much sky? Someone is singing a song about the Sun. That same sun will sing for us. I’m ready to curse everything, I’m ready to forgive everyone.” After the catharsis every word would have been superfluous, and it was felt in its own sweet way so indescribably that it’s enough to say the guys fulfilled all, absolutely all, expectations. And a perfect ejaculate of emotions closed just the first chapter of the festival!
Second on stage were the punks from Mošnje, Buldogi. Reviving the Slovenian punk past is closest to a Frankensteinian experiment, and by aroma and sound this beast wheezes accordingly. Following the example of Pankrti and the newly resurrected Niet, Kuzle and Lublanski psi, Buldogi decided years ago to cut themselves a slice of the pie too, and judging by the amount of geriatric pheromones, an ode to a 30-year-old moment of Slovenian creativity is a little stale and banally exhausting today. RV Maček, with his raspy vocals and guitar, is anything but the definition of youthful vigor. Singer Damo Zorc tries to keep in touch with the socially critical core of the former revolutionary past in the unsexy manner of a faded frontman, and when you add the slightly out-of-tune guitar of Rok Zupan and the suitably sloppy rhythm duo of Janez Fifolt and the drumming (in)exactness of Blaž Grm, shortly after the band’s biggest hit, Mi smo (Legende), it all gets boring pretty fast, even though the aesthetic level of the whole is eloquently summed up by the title of their record – Ni lepo. I’m not saying the old boys from the neighborhood have nothing to say, it’s just that the expiry date is painfully closer to some New (old) rock than to the progressive mindset of the young Kapa label and Kapa’s festival, but that’s only a matter of taste and fit. So is it a matter of defiance and genetic adaptability? Just as after the apocalypse only Keith Richards and cockroaches will remain on Earth, Buldogi have in their own way survived two state systems, had their moment of fame and attention in the new millennium, and in their own (stale) way promote an idyllic picture of rebellious times that never were like that. Missed moments can now be made up for even after 27 years, and history can always be rewritten, can’t it? The crowd left to Buldogi stands in a state of half-confused shock, and as for me, to be honest, I escape the imaginary revelry with a beer in hand for some fresh air. Punk is, after all, directness, sarcasm, a healthy dose of piss-taking and social awareness, and criticism hints that there shouldn’t be any serious hard feelings over what’s written, right?
After the interlude one-acter of musical or perhaps extra-contextual noise comes the return to the state of “normal” brain waves. After a short break, it was time for the surprise of the night – the newest signing of the parent label Kapa: the band Ewok. The eyes light up with joy and optimism as a trio with a higher spiritual navigator steps on stage. Stepping up to the keys is the inspired tamer of dub rhythms, exceptional electronic screams and the full tonal spectrality of the best moment of Slovenian music – Miha Šajina of Moveknowledgement, this time in a somewhat singular musical incarnation. Taking the drums is the genuinely friendly Luka Kuhar, and after years away from Slovenian stages, the former vocal driving force and pendulum of an exceptional Slovenian band that sadly stopped working reclaims his natural spot at the mic – Milan Jerkič, once the lead throat of the dub warriors of alternative Intimn Frizurn. The christening show, really the first live act, the first entry on the so-far-blank page of a new onstage sensation and a complete penetration into the heart of Slovenian lovers of good music can begin. Ewok are an atypical hybrid of electronics, techno rhythms and an organic dub version of rock. They are an alternative to all petrified norms and an answer to every assumption that alternative can only be atonal and, thanks to thick layers of intellectualism, reachable only by the chosen few. Ewok are pop, and this time pop is not an insult but a sincere compliment. Even though they’re a complete novelty in the Slovenian musical sky, the trio of music veterans pass the ball of inspiration around so naturally and tightly it’s as if they had a thousand gigs behind them. The left side of the stage is totally controlled by the demigod of mixers and keys, Miha, the central spot is used for his ventricular burnout by the somewhat aged but even better Milan. Onto the thick matrices of well-thought-out rhythms and sounds, Luka weaves in with the surgical precision of an intergalactic destroyer, and the result of the equation is a perfect synthesis of three souls in one balanced form. After the opening number, perfect for tuning the group libido to the dance floor, Don’t Stop, it’s time for the superheroes. Besides Pacman, the Superman logo also ignites in the dance rhythms, and a technically tight conglomerate of rhythm and melody sucks in the last atoms of held-back skepticism. Ewok are the new wooden commandment, and their music the gospel of a new faith in musical miracles. The guys come across as seasoned riders of the musical rodeo, and no deviation from the maxim of perfection can be detected for a single moment. Booty moves even the most cemented asses, and after Finacolada a hectoliter of pure juicy deliciousness and balanced poppy sweetness pours down your throat, after which diabetes isn’t such a big and sinister curse as it perhaps used to be. An exceptional concert of big moments and full sequences gallops all too quickly to its closing act, Are You Ready, and, to be honest – I can’t wait for the guys to serve up their first rock-solid, full-blooded debut, which will raise the quality bar and improve Kapa’s offering even further!
That after all the highs and lows seen so far, by the logic of general mathematical probability, only ups and downs on the sine wave of the night are possible, was confirmed by the electro punks Ludovik Material. The album Passion For Red happened to coincide with the day of the festival, and the birth of the firstborn of this Ljubljana trio – Matija Dolenc, wizard of electronic buttons and guitar, drummer Jernej Koren and the energetic, eccentric singer Tina Perić – carries their take on the notion of Prekmurje Noise Conspiracy to Ljubljana. That’s how you could describe the atypical disco noise of the young band, a description by which Ludovik Material come across as a band led by a former trance producer, a bassist who’s trying to play drums, and a singer who’s trying to play guitar, which rounds out a picture of something that is anything but ordinary and easily digestible. In fact, it’s the shock factor that rattles the central nervous system with outright musical and sonic provocation all at once. The musical oratorio is dark and melancholic to the amen, while the organic side, where the eyes get glued to an atypical post-punk anti-diva in torn tights and washed-out makeup, shakes hands so sharply and mercilessly with noisy Atari Teenage Riot electronics that the result can indeed be a very rough, inelegant and provocatively abrasive splash of chaotic excess. Ludovik Material is provocation and a real stage experience of total subversion, which isn’t necessarily always innovative. With that last point I touch on the repetitive patterns, which don’t dent the trio’s punchy image, and which, in their own way, offer the Ludoviks’ own solution for getting Buldogi to mingle with the rest of the acts. The Ludoviks are a Borg bridge between the world of the organic and the inorganic, that is, digital hardcore, and in a noisy, almost industrial way, in the relief portrayal of a rather cold world, the standout is above all Passion In Red. Passion wins out, and despite the occasional feeling of being lost on stage, Tina steers between the reefs of destructive self-destruction and undeniable stage charisma. The aesthetic of a morbid urban interpretation of the times and spaces of our concreted-over lives invites into mind and heart images of total revolt and outrage as well as total fascination, and the Ludoviks manage to live on both disjoined continents of the (un)beautiful at once. There’s no shortage of bizarreness and cynicism, so it’s atypically hard to follow the whole thing with full concentration. Nor is there any shortage of a postmodern, sinister sense of the imminent end, which drives the penultimate act of the night to its meaningful, applause-backed conclusion.
And after the strange mental episode of dichotomous split comes the time for eclectic reconciliation and final ecstasy. It arrives well past midnight, in the form of an exceptional cohesion of sonic riders of dub, electro and hard-sounding binary superiority, the band Beat Myth. For a long time I didn’t succumb to the charms of electronics, but after the first contact with Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack or, let’s be a little homegrown and Slovenia-loving, Moveknowledgement, any resistance to rhythm and the imperative to dance became completely pointless. The only criterion for consumption is, of course, a high level of intellect, juiciness and sonic polish, because not every fart on a sound synthesizer should be the one that instantly fogs up your mind and judgment at the first noise. BeatMyth is actually a conceptual upgrade of the exceptional freestyle work of the inspired singer and performer, rhapsodist and traveler N’Toko with DJ Plank Tone (Igor Vuk) and Mike Preeters (known in everyday life and without his alter ego as Mitja Pritržnik). What becomes evident right away is the unhurried inclination to cut straight into the meat, no foreplay. BeatMyth penetrate the club soul of Gala Hala with N’Toko’s track Masterplan, into which BeatMyth breathe an even sharper and above all more unyielding firmness of a post-apocalyptic world. The synthesis sounds like reinforced concrete that not even the randomness of unpredictable live situations can soften. A sharp drum&bass dubstep missile of pure dance ecstasy cuts into virgin ground like a ten-ton plow, and the furrowed heart surrenders to the binary algebra of rhythm and complete playful indefiniteness, after which anyone can only be a fervent follower, not a critic of Slovenian electronic innovation, which easily transcends even the confines of our proverbially limited little homeland. N’Toko brings you to orgasm with linguistic acrobatics, the other two with greater sonic manipulation. What follows is an organic missile of no gentler passion with Bondage, so that the collective mind can grapple with Leviathan. The latter is industrially calculating and sinister, and colder than the hardest steel. N’Toko is an orator of the dark images of the total phobic magnetism of hell, and the struggle with claustrophobic visions results in catharsis with Hands, otherwise an exceptional hit from the latest record by the exceptional Moveknowledgement. The dance track picks up somewhat more sinister undertones, and the image and foreboding of a once darker and harder-sounding Nebukadnezar creeps into my mind. It’s probably just a flash, since the stage entity is entirely different this time, but even so, the aftertaste of Hades can’t simply be washed away, not even by the fifth beer … The first act from the newest studio album Questionable Image is introduced by Arp, uncompromising and hard as Priapus’s dick, and the fertile spark of intergalactic wit results in a remix of Weedmo, in which Boltzman already confessed his love for THC – or at least that’s how my ears took this flash of love for botanical products. Your Own Two Heads reminds me of Zaphod from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and instead of pointless hanging-around humor, BeatMyth cut into the club haze with the rhythm and N’Toko’s sharp rhymes. I’m no connoisseur of lyrics, but the masculine call to think with both heads at once offers plenty of (orgasmic) cues, though this time the urge to dance and blow up the universe the Prodigy way won out over procreation. The whole thing is as sharp as an electro-punk missile of British brilliance in the incarnation of Prodigy, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Quite the opposite! All you have to do is connect the dots on the stellar, starry sky, and the picture is grander than the local obscure minimalism to the nth power. Connect The Dots is a play of rhythm and breakbeats, which any person with nine grams of life in their body would happily spin on their head, letting the heart burst out and scream at the top of their lungs: »I exist!«. The track Questionable Image, the title track of BeatMyth’s already third studio effort, is a qualitative culmination of energetic eruptions, and consciousness has meanwhile thoroughly dissolved in the solvent of the heart’s genius, while bits and bubbles of soul simply ooze impressively out through the pores, since the use of eyes failed long ago. I gave myself over to the rhythm and the touch of sound waves, sonic tsunamis, closed my eyes and simply drifted across the edges of the universe, while the whole of Gala breathed and pulsed with the imperative of total sonic manipulation. The grand finale of the night was chemically perfect with Sick, and the last atoms of composure dissolved in a storm of euphoria.
There was nothing to add, nothing to take away. The evening and the early morning were so perfect and complete, at the highest level. The cold Ljubljana morning embraced the lost-in-thought rhapsodes, who emptied Gala drop by drop, shaken and happy, nodding in agreement that Kapa’s festival assignment was more than satisfactory and all appetites damn well satisfied, even though we got no stars and radio attractions. Whether we’d be any happier otherwise is a thought with which I can end my stream of impressions. No loud answers are needed, since the question is merely rhetorical … Meanwhile, the countdown of heartbeats to the next Kapa festival, or night of endless surprises, has already begun, because after climbing to the peaks of perfect ecstasy, the next fix needs an even bigger dose of musical drug to make life more complete. Mission impossible? I’d no longer bet on that skeptical, threadbare phrase and hollow old nag, since with Kapa, surprises are always possible. My standing ovation this time confirms it, along with a sincere wish for more, and soon – and not in three years’ time …
Setlist
COMA STEREO:
1. Transgalaktika
2. Jasmin Starwars
3. 1000 mest
4. Iskra
5. Črna jutra
6. Bogomila
7. Kristalni voz
8. Vse misli so odveč
9. Harakiri
BULDOGI:
1. Mi smo (Legende)
2. Dvign glavo
3. Svetilnik stoletja
4. Ta ptič
5. Aroma
6. Slepa ulica
7. Suicid
8. Globalna štala
9. Oda revežu
10. Kolk rabš?
11. Drhal
EWOK:
1. Don’t Stop
2. Pacman-Superman
3. Booty
4. Finacolada
5. Street Light
6. Beat april
7. Are You Ready
LUDOVIK MATERIAL:
1. Intro
2. Passion for Red
3. Gun
4. Almihty
5. Made In
6. Come
7. Večerni program
8. Heart for Sale
9. Kraljević Marko
10. Bis: Večerni program (punk verzija)
BEATMYTH:
1. N’toko: Masterplan (BeatMyth remix)
2. Bondage
3. Leviathan
4. Moveknowledgement: Hands (BeatMyth remix)
5. Arp
6. Boltzman: Weedmo (BeatMyh remix)
7. Your Own 2 Heads
8. Connect the dots
9. Questionable image
10. Sick
Photo gallery
