Artist: Melanholiki
Label: Self-released
Released: 2012
Length: 46:04
Rating: 5/5
Melanholiki are those soulful musical shepherds who shook the top of the Slovenian charts in the mid-eighties with the hit O, Anja. They probably didn’t expect anything like that themselves. Clearly, success came too early. The material for the debut was fully recorded a year later, but the whole thing only came out in 1996, and even then just as a cassette titled »O, Anja rožo imaš v laseh« . This is a band with a solid three decades behind it.
This group has an incredibly well-honed knack for delivering its legacy in the prestige of an authentic sonic landscape, one with an exceptionally warm and natural complexion, a rustic vibe of nostalgic sentiment, and the damn lively breathing of a musical body tailored just so. It’s an eclectic mix of blues, swing, world music and jazz, with rock woven through all of it, of course, plus the melodic accessibility of a »mainstream« reach, which gives the band that pop finesse that’s just as at home spinning on the radio airwaves.
Crowning this chiseled, eclectic image of Melanholiki is the excellent vocal interpretation of Marko Stabej. Even at the most basic level, when it comes to crafting poetry, Melanholiki play in the top league of Dolina Šentflorjanska! In that respect, Marko Stabej could easily try his hand as a very successful singer-songwriter. The poetry of Melanholiki is a blend of shrewdly combined rhymes that hold the melody and the compactness of the songs together, and a witty, sparkling, highly intelligent web of metaphors that keeps the listener constantly busy with the message. That’s the foundation Marko dives into headfirst, with a fully immersed approach and an extremely supple, adaptable vocal performance that he steers and adjusts according to the mood he’s after in each song. Already at this point on the album, alongside the innate talent, you can see sparks of remarkable maturity and experience, which Melanholiki have finally managed to carry over onto the album »Končno«.
The fusion of blues, jazz, swing and cabaret music has always been a strong starting point for Slovenian bands, since time immemorial, including for Slovenian pop songwriting in the golden seventies and even earlier… In the new era, Nula Kelvina are one of those musical ruminators. Anyone who knows that band knows where Melanholiki are coming from. With the noticeable difference that Melanholiki’s music is far more polished, more fully realized and sonically fuller, not to mention the much greater expressive variety that runs through the songs on »Končno«, as well as the stronger melodic catchiness.
When it comes to instrumental color, Melanholiki occasionally work like a proper little Big Band RTV Slovenija in miniature (the title track Končno). Only the strings are missing, and you really can’t say you miss them. The main thematic statement rests on the harmonic interweaving of clarinet, saxophone and keyboards. The clean guitar sound of chord work mostly pins down the rhythm, together with a warm, active bass line and sophisticated use of drums, as demanded by the sensitively shaped sonic image of this strictly organic-sounding album, where you can even hear a sewing needle hit the floor in the sound!
There’s tons of room on the album for artistic provocation! The instrumental middle sections prove that Melanholiki could, at any moment and with total calm, veer into longer jam breakouts with no end in sight! Tažalostna is built on a ska rhythm, and the closer Še so gradovi delivers an extraordinary mix, where rock noise stands out too, yet is balanced out at the same time by reggae rhythms. Somewhere it was written that Melanholiki play the works of Frank Zappa. The intro and outro of the song Koračnica, with its distant woodwind melody, feel like a slowed-down, »stretched-out« sibling of the Peaches En Regalia motif. Koračnica is the song that surprises most. In a good way. The guitar steps into the spotlight too, with a superb placement of notes that juicily fills what is probably the most dynamic song on the album. It feels downright progressive. The atmosphere builds gradually, and the song carries a touch of unexpected twists. A masterful fusion that plays out in barely four minutes.
Lanski sneg can be described as the »second part of the song O, Anja«, since it weaves in the chorus melody of the band’s hit O, Anja! Otherwise, the songs have a catchiness made for heavy radio rotation! Besides Lanski sneg, that’s immediately flagged by the opener Kralj in kraljica, followed by Miren. Such traits don’t spare the vocally deliberately rough song Silvija in Mara either, which has surely the most lucid lyrics on the album (in original lucid wit of verses only the song Melanholik can match it), nor another infectious song near the end of the album, Pupa.
This album won’t bore you for a single second. Even though it’s clear which frequency Melanholiki are generally tuned to, that there are no hiding places in their musical exposé, and that the art vibe is more or less clearly defined, this is an album of such a refined collision of several genres into a highly listenable passion that few acts on Slovenian soil ever reach. »Končno« radiates broad accessibility to the masses as well as the sharply defined eclecticism of the band’s own art charisma. At the same time, we must not overlook the fact that this is actually the band’s first real studio album, and that the songs for it were written over a very long period, during which the group filed every detail down to a full shine.
»Končno« is an album where you won’t find a single expressive slip. Not in the sound production, not in the arrangements, not in the vocal interpretation (which wavers convincingly throughout, between sensual, sophisticated warmth on one side and rough, manly bluntness on the other), and not in the very setup of the compositions. No flaws. Everything is optimized. »Končno« is the kind of record you can’t add anything to and can’t take anything away from. An album of perfect artistic brilliance. Let’s just hope we won’t have to wait a whole string of years for the next one.
Lineup
Marko Stabej – vocals, keyboards
Miha Muck – guitar
Žiga Arh – clarinet
Jernej Bolka – saxophone
Matjaž Zorko – bass guitar
Jaka Vadnjal – drums
Production
Miha Stabej
Tracklist
1. Kralj in kraljica
2. Miren
3. Silvija in Mara
4. Tažalostna
5. Koračnica
6. Lanski sneg
7. Končno
8. Vreme in smisel
9. Pupa
10. Večerni oblaki
11. Melanholik
12. Še so gradovi
