Venue: Orto Bar, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Concert date: January 24, 2014
Attendance: 40 – 50
Ticket price: €6 / €10 (includes the album)
It’s hard to give birth to something original and then, from the safe haven of your own garage, hideout or whatever other rehearsal space, share it with the world. First in the form of gigs, then as a record, over which self-proclaimed connoisseurs and »experts« usually split into two camps: those who find a seed in your brainchild, a grain of inspiration, positives, brilliance and sweetness, and the others, the more frustrated and embittered ones, who sow strands of negativity that kill the will to grow and bloom. Personally, I’m always open to variety and difference. After the flood and parade of bling-bling rhymesters, obscure propagators of gangsta underground in Slovenia and around the world, and only rare gems of intellectual rap like N’Toko, Trkaj, a sharp-tongued Klemen na kvadrat here and there, or the more gallant tenders of heavy rhymes without the cursing, Murat and Jose, the time has finally come, after Kocka and Pasji kartel, to polish our ears and souls a little with some not-so-purist hip-hop from the Tržič neck of the woods. Honestly, I’d sooner file T.M.S. Crew (The Masta Skillz Crew), with their dewy three years of existence, under a gray zone of reggae-jazz-funky-rock pop progressive, with a truly well-honed flow of ideas, criticism and freestyle inspiration, than claim I’m dragging something as sacrilegious for Rockline as hard-sounding hip-hop in here (even though I’m a fan of that too, but only if it’s potent, has substance and overflows with quality energy …). Going to Friday’s gig in the belly of Ljubljana’s Orto was a mix of interesting circumstances, a sincere invitation from people who I know know what good, solid music is, and the rest was more or less a matter of everything lining up: the context, a bit of free time in the evening and good clean energy, clean feeling, if you will.
The rap duo The Masta Skillz are Luka Vogelnik a.k.a. Lucky L., one of the main lyricists and the tantric center of the duo, who strives for balance and harmony of life’s energies across the whole black-and-white palette of extremes, and Jošt Urbanc a.k.a. Joe-Joe, who adds a bit more situational positivity and an extra burst of energy to the fast-tongued vocal duo. Besides the two MCs, this time the stage is shared by a crew of inspired, high-quality musical hopefuls from Upper Carniola: the talented guitarist Teo Peternelj and his rastafarian counterpart Mitja Slabe a.k.a. Rasta on the second guitar, bassist Simon Roblek a.k.a. Sine, the gifted rhythm man behind the skins and cymbals Tomi Eler, the lovely Sanja Potežica on the feminine side of the band’s vocal backup, plus guests in the persons of accordionist Jan Ulčnik, saxophonist and clarinetist Robert Bone, blonde flutist Maruša Žlindra and, last but not least, the brass inserts of trumpeter Leon Slabe. Damn! That’s a lot of announced musicians, and if you know the Orto stage, you know it’s not the Cankarjev dom stage. It’s too small even for a four-piece, let alone an eleven-piece (or twelve-piece) crew of music zealots. For their first descent on Ljubljana, T.M.S. Crew decided to bring all the artillery they had, because the birth of a firstborn (the album Kdo miži, announced last December, can easily rival the birth of a first child …) only happens once in a lifetime, and everything after that is just repetition and upgrades. Add the fact that the young guns, guys and girls alike, decided to lose their Ljubljana stage virginity at Orto, and the support from everyone who sensed something out of the ordinary and lasting in the band’s atypical record was all the more a given. The clock crept from nine toward ten, and at half past ten the landing began, with the arrival of a guitarist in an Indian feather headdress and the stage filling up completely with all the co-conspirators listed above.
»We’re gonna prove to you that you can rap on an accordion, Ljubljana! We are T.M.S Crew!« Lucky L. announces the opening of the event. First comes the exceptional rastafarian easy-going fairy tale of the song Rata res. The gradual feeling out of Ljubljana’s climate starts with a nice balance of juicy guitars and the sounds of accordion and trumpet, though young Sanja, up there in high heels, clearly can’t hear herself too well in the monitor. Little slips, but no loss of gravitational mass. The song, with the duo of Lucky L.’s and Joe-Joe’s two laid-back MC mics, works like a dreamy meditation, and the slide down the chute begins in the manner of an energetic shuffle. Kva hočte od nas glides on New Orleans-style, accordion-tinted blues into more interesting waters with faster revs. A sarcastic web of wordplay about creativity, connectedness in modern times, the perspective of young people, and the all-too-often-heard line about how everything is just roses, and T.M.S. Crew would rather surrender to sparks of creativity, music and positivity that can carry you through even the gray of a morbid everyday. The Tržič rap is lighter in mood and doesn’t break bones with the first bar and first rhyme, I have to admit after the opening, and the thirty-odd attendees would rather give themselves over to the rhythm, the waves of music, an energetic event that’s undoubtedly on the right level, except there’s precious little room on stage to open all the valves. In the first third, T.M.S. keep the flight in safe airspace.
The funkier To je u men rests on more prominent guitars and beautifully seasoned, dreamy sounds of brass trumpet. The rest is devoted to voicing a clear and cultivated rebellion against the system. Both MCs are softer on the rhymes, more like Murat and Jose than Stekli psi or the ever-angry Klemen Klemen. The nuances are different, more live-sounding and still being built, discovering their own limits of the allowed and the forbidden, while Sanja, with the lovely undertones of her feminine, sexy vocal, adds a subtle bass note to the whole. We all need our circle to stay intact, to develop and to reveal ourselves in full, and the beautiful song Moj krog nicely exposes its share of psychotherapy, the cycle of total self-destruction, social depression and marginality, seen from the other side of the field. A well-rounded sentiment of pure pain and liberation is topped off by flute and saxophone. No faking and no shortcuts, and the guys and girls prove they can serve their instruments without posing on stage and burning out in a kitschy parade of ego. Nice! The continuation confirms that the whole thing is appealing enough even for more eminent musical guests. »Who’s the most potent and fertile Slovenian hip-hopper, the best Slovenian MC?« asks Lucky L.. Trkaj? N’Toko? Nope! This time, in context, it’s more like the Fužine-bred Zlatan Čordić a.k.a. Zlatko. To the sound of accordion, trumpet, guitars, drums and bass, alongside the two Tržič rhymesters, the guest slots neatly into the whole, giving the youngsters extra value and a bit more tempered edge. Nothing is more important than the moment here and now, say Lucky, Joe and Zakladko in the song Učer, dons, jutr. It works fluidly and without a hitch. We all long for the golden days and a better tomorrow, and the good wordflow pours out of the speakers like quality, if poppy, musical molasses that promises the Tržič crew fairly frequent rotation on the radio waves. After a well-rehearsed joint performance comes a bit of quality cooling down with a seemingly totally spontaneous jam session, which, for all its charm, still sounds more learned than fully spontaneous. Zlatko recalls his golden moments, and the truth that life is a school that teaches, tempers and shapes us all, and that change doesn’t just happen but is necessary for the survival of ourselves, our ideas and our creativity. Lucky L. and Joe-Joe are still racking up their mileage of experience and impressions, but for now they’re walking a safe, well-paved road.
After the sounds of the flute, the harder-hitting slide of the song Naumi rumbles in, with a bit more distorted punch, and after echoes of guitar a wordplay begins about how we can only ever pick our own field of self-grown originality, and without inspiration and the potency of a future, amid credit worries and the weight of existence, we often dissolve like mirages and vanish from young idealists into the complete nothing of gray adulthood. T.M.S. run their own rock-reggae movie and, with a good socially critical undertone, touch the heart centers even of those who are a bit more sensitive and usually have a harder time facing the gravity of reality. The Carniolan melodiousness is rather cautious here and not harsh enough on the system and the social restrainers who ride us and steal tomorrow’s gold and the colors in our rainbows. I wonder whether T.M.S.’s mainstream sound is more socially acceptable, though it still pokes at the thorn of current affairs, just with less appetite for conflict, revolution and the overthrow of warped values. It’s all a call for »Peace! Love! Unity! Respect!« and this time, with the track P.L.U.R., the crew releases a bit more social criticism into the sonic ether, but with an undertone of respect, refinement and a softness all their own. Sanja’s lovely vocal softens the occasional outbursts of anger, which this time don’t shy away from swearing either, but with the context of a better tomorrow. There’s something idealistic in the whole lyrical build-up, and T.M.S., with the approval of a slightly reserved but still dance-minded crowd, steer the gig in the right direction. The harder-hitting Apokalipsa recalls the sadness of realizing that after 2012 we got a sequel that hasn’t yet seen the destruction and survival instinct of Mad Max, and everything is heading toward degradation, recession-driven emptying, a discharge of creative charge, while frustration pacemakers are built into our minds and hearts. Apokalipsa hits the nail on the head this time and, with a bit less reserve, roars more in the manner of French Funk Fundation than the softness felt before. T.M.S. light me up more and move me more on distorted power. Then a proper dose of adrenaline with the track Pad u feeling not, which syncs Balkan scales, funk and a catchy chorus asking whether we’ve fallen into the right feeling note. Absolutely. No doubt, but on a second listen and a second visit, with the songs well settled in, it’ll activate the centers for physical loosening-up of those muscles that, with good dance metrics, almost kick into a phase of independent dynamics already this time. The closing blues-ska-chillout of the song Kdo miži puts the final dot on the i of the evening, and besides the dictate of the record’s melodic and rhythmic matrix, T.M.S. give themselves a little free rein here, allowing a somewhat more intense treatment of a song that criticizes the silence of the silent malcontents who can’t even admit to themselves that we’re in deep shit and a change, a transformation, is needed. In the closing section, with a more intense paraphrase in the manner of Trbovlje’s Red Five Point Star, T.M.S. use it as a screen for a total upgrade with a distorted finale, which, after Sanja’s call to repeat the chorus, wraps up the parabola of the concert’s persuasion in a tasteful style, though not with a full climax to a thoroughly praiseworthy end. A short bow and a group greeting to the audience follow, then an express exit from the stage. The story of T.M.S.’s first Ljubljana act has come to an end. No fiasco, but sadly no standing, roaring ovations either.
This isn’t really an act of criticism. What matters is that whatever hasn’t yet been properly digested, fully absorbed and settled, in the capital of alternative and central-cultural masturbation, doesn’t earn visible praise from anyone anyway. I’ll venture to say that T.M.S. Crew were, in their own way, which strives for perfectionism, at moments a victim of their own projections of what an ideal concert should deliver, one nobody could have expected from them the first time around. Totally unnecessary, since the band’s energy level is perfectly coherent and the youngsters lack nothing, except at moments maybe a few more decisive, juicier balls and a firmer spine. A matter of taste and a matter of vision on the part of an individual infected with his own musical diction of perfection, fuck it, everyone has their own mental wave of associations and conclusions about what would launch them into the stratosphere better at a given moment. Still, I have to admit that the young Tržič folks (men and women alike) are a good crew of well-connected entertainers who, I bet, will keep tempering and shaping themselves. It’s a matter of mileage, and once they’ve broken the Ljubljana ice, I hope next time the illusion of the unconquerable frog-pond ramparts will fall too. Charisma demands a bit of lost respect and the absolute abandonment of the yardstick by which a musician measures their own quality against the reactions of a never-impartial audience. Next time I bet they’ll be able to pull back the breakwaters of their perfect cathartic energy and let waves of well-calibrated, sophisticated anger and constructive criticism crash more concretely against the shores of even a less prepared audience. Let it wash away the whole world and leave only the toughest standing, and with boldness will follow salvos of recognition, praise and claims that everyone who missed the concert was robbed of something exceptional. This time there were no cataclysmic waves of pleasure, but we did taste a tasty concert by a band that hints at the silhouettes of good aesthetic profiling and well-balanced music with the essence, and the beginnings of teeth, that will bite more concretely in the future. As consolation, it’s worth mentioning that the Ljubljana concert virginity has fallen, and by the principle of the master who makes the practice and the fact that practice makes the master, I dare predict that after an otherwise very solid gig things can only get better. Next time I’m hoping for a full sweaty descent down the wild slopes, with no snowplowing, no brakes and no gates, and to this young dozen of promising talents I wish many more good, penetrating shows and big conquests of even bigger stages, at home and abroad (regardless of the fact that they cultivate the beauty of native expression). I hope they won’t hold my candor against me, and let me borrow a quote from their record: »Gandhi is telling truth! Always!« This time purely in the name of prosperity and an evolutionary breakthrough of all ceilings, limits and the abolition of unnecessary limiters on full creativity, because there are no boundaries. Sky is the limit, baby! Sky is the limit!
Setlist
1. Rata res
2. Kva hočte od nas
3. To je u men
4. Moj krog
5. Učer, dons, jutr (feat. Zlatko)
6. Jam (feat. Zlatko)
7. Naumi
8. P.L.U.R.
9. Apokalipsa
10. Pad u feeling not
11. Kdo miži?
12. Kdo miži outro
Photo Gallery
