Artist: T.M.S. Crew
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2013
Duration: 45:07
Rating: 3/5
Usually, when rap releases land on Slovenian music shelves, you get an earful of put-into-words discontent from the regional capitals – Ljubljana, Maribor, Kranj, Novo Mesto, Murska Sobota (only Jesenice and Velenje break the rule) – but this time it’s the somewhat forgotten Tržič that’s writing itself onto the map of places with lyrically condensed potential. Honestly, I can’t remember a single musically resonant thing this once-thriving industrial town, mostly a cobblers’ town, ever gave Slovenia and the world, but now a renaissance of ideas and inspiration is apparently kicking off there too, and the proof is the young, vital rhymers with musical muscle The Masta Skills Crew, or T.M.S. Crew for short. The band has really only been active since 2011, and after barely two years of generating, testing and polishing, the rhymes, the melodic-rhythmic outpouring of good chemistry and the music-softened statements of global discontent have poured into a proper debut, a first record with a dozen musical gifts, with which the lads and lasses head into battle for their cause and for recognition for the work done so far.
With hip-hop, I’d first think of three extremes – either the pretty worn-out spiel about how we’re all at home in the ghettos where nigga gangsta violence goes down (not just Velenje, but if you believe it, even Ljubljana’s Fužine is apparently life-threatening …), blink-blink dumbing-down (following the glittery MTV recipe of cars, the beauty of shallowness, flesh and emptiness, a whole herd of characters hungry mainly for quick instant fame are drifting toward this simple recipe of mental vacuum, and they get, thank the gods, only quick oblivion in return …), or deep intellectualizing about the meaning of life, revolt, revolution and the evolution of what humankind stands for (only a rare few learned thinkers with a sharpened tongue can pull that off well, and the outstanding N’Toko immediately comes to mind). Rap has always held up its own vision, its own mirror, to society and reality, though the surface of mirrors doesn’t always show the true colors of the world we live in and shape, my dear friends, but I’ve always found it juicier to listen to more potent, meaty content than to shallow crap, so I approached the work of this band from the socially depressed margins of Upper Carniola critically, but with a big dose of optimism.
With Kdo miži?, T.M.S. Crew first of all seriously re-conceptualize the recipe for making music. Instead of a synthetic matrix, the two rapping pillars of the project, Tha Masta Skillz, went for something livelier, more unpredictable and fresher, something with an actual pulse. The duo has grown into a ten-piece expedition made up of eight talented guys and two no less talented girls, and as the backdrop for their aesthetic tinkering they picked concrete social problems. After an intro that announces a collective outburst of creativity with a simulated Gandhi address, the first radio-friendly single of the record follows, the track Naumi. It’s an imaginary projection of the world that is at the same time completely veristic and true to the actual state of society. We’re apathetic about current events, and besides losing critical thinking and our own mental path, people prefer the effortless, shallow logic of vegetating. Society is without inspiration, and totally irrelevant empty technicalities steer the world of complete drainage toward complete short-termism without any vision. T.M.S. Crew wrap the direct hit of heavy themes in a tuneful little package that, besides rock, brings together elements of reggae and ska and drifts relaxedly past all the anchor points toward perfectly decent, middle-of-the-road rhyme-smithing. Guitars, pleasantly and just-right distorted, back up the sound of flute, drums and bass, which try to give the mosaic of influences a little drum’n’bass rhythm too, while the mic focus gets passed around between Jo-Joe, Lucky L and Sanja’s sweet vocals, and the guitarist Rasta adds a Rastafarian touch (almost Kingston style). It all goes straight into the ears on the very first listen, which usually worries and bugs me, since in too-easy a flow of energies there’s often a lot of instant-noid dictation that I prefer to steer clear of. T.M.S. Crew do serve up a socially critical dramolet, but it’s not angry enough for me to nod along at the top of my voice, though I have to admit the first radio hit is audible right away. No less catchy is the track Moj krog, which, instead of a broader social outburst of discontent, turns to the microcosm of the socially burdened primordial social cell, the family. We all have our circle of co-conspirators and fellow sufferers, who, for us social specimens of the homo sapiens race, are a space for unloading negative vibes, a space of mental and physical survival. The tuneful interplay of simple but tasteful guitars, clarinet, flute, rhythm section and well-rehearsed, crafty vocals drives the train of events onward in the direction of smooth, snag-free listening, which this time is neither a curse nor a reproach.
Already in the first third, T.M.S. Crew give themselves time for a reign of duets. Zlatan Čordić a.k.a. Zlatko gives Učer, dons, jutr a more decisive undertone of socially acceptable rap that you can picture on the radio waves. Simple riffs feast with trumpet, accordion and dancey groove funk, over which, on a fresh carefree base, three MCs this time pass the mic, and the ace with the longest track record and mileage sounds relaxed on the track and like nobody but himself. There’s no feeling of surplus value in this otherwise decent (maybe even too decent) tune, but it’s completely coherently factored into the comfort calculus of the undemanding half of the audience. A more New Orleans-style, rustic vibe comes with the track where Tanja Bukovec adds her feminine touch. Kva hočte od nas proves that you really can rap over the sounds of a piano accordion, and instead of sharp-tongued reproach, a soft sentiment follows that goes, once again, very softly and simply into the ears and doesn’t burden you with anything. Fine, there’s enough material here for carefree relaxation for everyone. And then comes a game of associations. Remember S.A.R.S.’ super catchy tune Buđav lebac? The song Rata res can touch you in a similar way, and something aesthetically similar can be sensed in the melos of restrained accordion pulls and breath blown through the mouthpiece into the brassy body of the trumpet. The guitar, with its more relaxed ska syncopation, falls into the context of a slightly melancholic tale about searching for, and briefly touching, that original, inspiration-filled something that, once you lose it, you can easily wait for in vain your whole life. What is the foundation of happiness? That’s a question T.M.S. Crew don’t give a sharp, clear answer to, and as for the question Kdo miži in this society of complete world-wide decentering, I occasionally get the feeling that a lot of filler was added to the otherwise light-hearted petting with rhymes, and a bit too little of a socially critical note, anger, revolt, edge that would stimulate the intellect on a deeper listen. I’m not talking about the music and the tonal foundation, because the album’s title track, like the rest of the record, has enough rhythmic seductiveness that you can dance very nicely to every bar of the verses, choruses and in-between passages. What can I say? After N’Toko and Trkaj, I’ve become pretty hungry for more intense stimulation of the brain’s critical-thinking centers …
Did you fall into the feeling? Pad u filing not, with its Balkan tuneful undertone, good rhythm and addictive guitar riff, lets you know that in the current time and world there’s too much darkness and gravitating toward hopelessness anyway, so T.M.S. Crew unwind this time with party-ish metrics and a good flow, and the »vibe« is more suited to nostalgic, rustic jamming against the foes of point X in the confluence of coordinates of the beyond. If everything’s going to hell, it doesn’t mean we can’t at least be a little more relieved of the ballast of programmed dictates of capitalist suction into black holes of total nihilization while we’re at it. Time to dance, and after the dance, a bit of a reality check with the somewhat more sentimental undertones of the track To je u men. It’s like slapping a bit of liquid »wordflow« onto Pando, and the rather nocturnal touch of trumpet, dreamy guitars and flowing drum taps don’t bring the standards of thunderousness. Noise is unacceptable to the lion’s share of the society we live in anyway, and T.M.S. Crew this time thoroughly cater to the tastes of the majority. P.L.U.R. or »Peace Love Unity Respect« is one of the more concise moments of voiced discontent with the world, and T.M.S. Crew spice up the mental mantra of negativity with a bit of hippie idealism about the beauty of an ideal world of coexistence and love. Love is a multilayered concept, and the different layers of existing in the world, the troubles, the cataclysmic nature of humankind, which can find peace only after the moment we truly start living Christ’s teachings of unconditional love, can be read between the lines in one of the more contemplative moments of the record. The rhymes are also a lot more convincing than before, and when a bit more market-stall beauty follows in the apocalyptically cunning Apokalipsa, I’d like to see a bit more movement toward the end of the record, but with a lot more edge and no compromise. The ending is once again under Gandhi’s sign, and the nonviolent resistance to system and society wraps up the way it began – without complications and without a burning feeling in the abdominal region.
The fact is that from rap out of an Upper Carniolan suburbia I expected a bit more hardness, discontent, backing from revolt, but what I got was a rather lukewarm blend of otherwise radio-friendly tunes, which, on the tally of pleasing radio editors, lack those few doses of testosterone, spice and subversive spirit that we need more than ever, at least right now. Don’t get me wrong – Kdo miži? is perfectly decent and, as far as production and aesthetics go, one of the more listenable pop-funk-rap releases of the past few years, but you shouldn’t go looking for enigmatic messages or revolutionary gospels for a better tomorrow. T.M.S. Crew don’t offer a definitive answer or a recipe for enlightenment, for grasping the meaning of life, but they do give themselves time and space for a between-the-lines game of slightly too soft rhymes without real gravitational weight or the shattering impact of pure lightning energy that you’d want to be struck by, and this time that energy is rather low-voltage and doesn’t push the comfort potentiometers into the realm of a pure ten or into the red zone of excess, the kind that would keep spinning in your head for years to come and leave your head ringing with revelations. There’s no revolution, but there is lightness and pleasure, which, every now and then, just plain feels good. T.M.S. Crew are a band with potential that needs a bit more polishing and a bit more explicit muscle. Next time I hope for a little less decent caution and more daring, and then I could announce a bright future to the lads and lasses a lot more loudly. In other words: what they offer this time isn’t bad, but it could have been better. I bet room for improvement will come with the very next record, because T.M.S. Crew can, quite simply, do it.
Lineup
Luka Vogelnik a.k.a. Lucky L – vocals, rapping
Jošt Tadvan a.k.a. Joe-Joe – vocals, rapping
Sanja Potežica – backing vocals, vocals
Mitja Slabe a.k.a. Rasta – guitar, backing vocals
Tomi Eler – drums
Simon Roblek a.k.a. Sine – bass
Leon Slabe – trumpet
Maruša Žlindra – flute
Jan Ulčnik – accordion
Robert Bone – clarinet, saxophone
Guest musicians:
Zlatan Čordić – Zlatko – vocals on track #4
Tanja Bukovec – vocals on track #5
Production
Željko Mladenovič
Track list
1. Intro
2. Naumi
3. Moj krog
4. Učer, dons, jutr (feat. Zlatko)
5. Kva hočte od nas (feat. Tanja)
6. Rata res
7. Kdo miži
8. Pad u feeling not
9. To je u men
10. P.L.U.R.
11. Apokalipsa
12. Outro
