Venue: Gala Hala, Metelkova, Ljubljana
Concert date: 22.04.2009
Attendance: 130
Ticket price: 13/15 €
Korai Öröm are a legendary Hungarian psychedelic outfit who have been stirring up the European underground for years with their original blend of psychedelic music, trance, dub and Eastern (and you could probably file Hungarian under that too) influences. Very little has changed in their ranks since the beginning, so from the early years right up to now we’ve been able to follow them in practically the same lineup, and that shows in how steady and tight their music is. They put out their first album way back in 1995 and have released a whole pile of critically acclaimed records since. This year they dropped their eighth studio album, and that was reason enough to make the big leap across the slightly murky lake and pay a visit to our homeland.
When the polite hour finally struck, the Hungarian boys showed up on stage and greeted us with nothing other than technical difficulties. They got sorted quickly, though, and it was time for the crowd to give itself over to the rhythms of the psychedelic legends. Korai Öröm impress you with the visuals alone, which run nonstop throughout the music. They remind you a bit of the projections you sometimes catch at electronic gigs, which is hardly surprising, since these guys work such elements into their songs too. All night long the audience got to enjoy four-four beats that forced everyone on the dance floor to do exactly what a dance floor is for. Korai Öröm simply play the kind of music you have to sway to, even if you’re used to quiet variety shows and evenings of poetry reading. This is music for swinging your hips and having a good time.
Despite the constant beat, the guys are musically pretty original, but I still can’t avoid a few comparisons. The closest match would be Ozric Tentacles, who also paid a visit to Metelkova once. Of course, you can pick up quite a few influences from the forefathers of psychedelic music, Gong, and a touch of Pink Floyd too (from their more psychedelic stuff, obviously, you can’t picture something like The Wall here). Still, Korai Öröm mostly walk a musical path of their own. The influences are there, but this is music you could call progressive in the true sense of the word, since it tears down the borders between genres like psychedelia, trance and dub.
Korai Öröm are really tight musically. For me personally, the biggest weak spot was the singer, who produces garbled sounds you can’t tell are Hungarian, English or some made-up language. It often seems like the guy is just yelling and mumbling into the mic at random. The fact that he seemed to be under the influence of some unidentified substance certainly didn’t help the articulation, and he clearly wanted to share his love for whatever it was with us. The whole thing felt more like a clown act than a performance by a good vocalist. Still, you have to admit he has a good feel for entertaining the crowd, even if he addressed us in incomprehensible English one moment, Hungarian the next, then Russian, German, and he threw in a few free Slovenian words that warmed up our national pride even more. I’ve got practically no complaints about the other members. The guitarist contributed some great solos, and his parts always sounded super smooth and dreamy. The keyboardist was hard at work too. Besides his fast fingers, he added some nice looped sections that gave the music the glow of electronic music. The wind player did a lot of work as well, stuffing a pretty impressive number of gadgets into his mouth and pulling all kinds of different effects out of them, which did wonders for the grandeur of the music. The rhythm section is indestructible too. This time we didn’t just see the classic drummer and bassist, but an extra percussionist as well, who made sure Gala Hala thundered even harder. And that wasn’t all. For one song a guest singer showed up on stage to help out on “Uj Arab”.
So another legendary band has visited Slovenia, and once again at Metelkova, which is increasingly becoming a refuge for top-notch, and above all non-commercial, music. Korai Öröm didn’t let us down either. We saw superb musicians and a superb concert, with the impression only slightly spoiled by the singer, who was obviously in some other dimension and almost looked like a younger version of Daevid Allen (Gong), but apparently that’s one of the more important ingredients in psychedelic music too (why, though?). In short, Korai Öröm won us over with their performance, and all we can do is hope they come back to our neck of the woods.
Photos: Mojca Perdih
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