Label: Celinka
Release date: 15.09.2019
Producer: Janez Križaj
Album length: 35.06 min.
Genre: Singer / Songwriter
Rating: 10 / 10
A few years ago, Martin Ramoveš shot onto the Slovenian singer-songwriter scene like a meteor, with a string of albums: “Zvok dežele” (2012), “Nesojeni kavboji” (2014) and “Astronavti” (2017). The young artist would never have been this successful if his vision hadn’t also been so distinctively convincing. The element Martin has used to keep strengthening his standing on the scene, besides his remarkable feel for poetry and songwriting, is his unsuspected talent as a painter. From the very beginning, Martin has paired his music with stories illustrated by his comics. The music and the story in the comic are bound together. One doesn’t work without the other.
This musician is incredibly hard-working. Recently he found creative inspiration in studying the life and work of the Slovenian satirical poet Ivan Rob, who was no ordinary poet but an absolute original, someone who lived ahead of his time. His standout personality trait was that he was always smiling, upbeat, and, at least on the surface, enjoyed every bit of his otherwise very short life. Rob was so honest and had no idea what a lie even was, and precisely because of his great truthfulness he was a thorn in many people’s sides. Hence that bit about living ahead of his time. Reading his poetry, Martin found plenty of parallels with the shape and morals of today’s society, if any of that is even left, and if it is, it can probably be measured in a few fading quanta. What follows from that? That history teaches us nothing, and that as a thinking individual you’d better not think or ask too much, or you become a thorn in the system’s side (read: useless, even dangerous), they declare you schizophrenic, load you up with pills and get you “under control”. Like many other artists, Martin often feels lonely in all of this, so his soul found the perfect outlet in identifying with the legacy of Ivan Rob’s life and work.
To that end, the sparkling Slovenian singer-songwriter set ten of Ivan Rob’s poems to music and gave them a rocking singer-songwriter stamp. Considering that this is Martin’s fourth album, the ten tracks deliver the musical style you’d expect, but it’s lucky enough to have a unique, recognizable voice and a decisive stamp of originality, the same one Ramoveš has used to address his audience since the very start of his career. Ivan Rob’s poems lay bare many faces of his soul, and Martin follows that with delicate artistic sensitivity, pouring the poet’s messages into rock sermonizing, and in doing so, often with a socially critical note, he subtly and boldly brings Rob’s poetry up to date.
Let’s jump to how the compositions sound. Let me say right away that Martin pulled off an exceptionally bold fusion of Ivan Rob’s poetry with his own musical, singer-songwriter view of the free artist, and with flying colors he reached his main goal. Rock is also a cry of rebellion. In Rob’s day, that was the “razor-sharp, biting truth” trapped inside his poetry. Martin brings both together. The album “Rob” is a stripped-down rock document, played as if it were a live gig in the studio and, as far as possible, done in an “in one take” manner. Martin sticks to an elemental Telecaster sound that’s just distorted enough to tease, while the accompanying phrases still keep a good dose of “crackly cleanness”, with a repeated emphasis on reverb. Production-wise the album is completely naked, rudimentary and unpolished. There’s nowhere to hide here. Martin has a distinctive mid-to-low voice, occasionally and pleasingly weighed down with a bigger helping of “manliness”, which keeps generating subtle feelings of longing, melancholy, quiet anxiety, and a search for inner (spiritual and emotional) fulfillment. The first time it bares itself in sincerity is the subtle Legla je noč, and it grips the listener firmly. The arrangement of the song Kristal čaroben shows Martin’s power to deliver a proper rock’n’roll composition that could easily knock on the doors of radio airwaves. One of the album’s happiest numbers is the utterly quirky but energetically catchy and bouncy Črv, which doesn’t hide a pinch of country comedy, with a melody that couldn’t sound more “Šentflorjan” if it tried. Then there’s the solemn, awakening Na rokah te nosil bom, with a whiff of country rock’n’roll that not even Johnny Cash would have turned down. Even in the “sandy desperado blues waltz” Le še eno pomlad, the brilliant coaxing out of melancholy and anxiety doesn’t fade, with the aesthetics of a gradually building theater drama running through the composition. Daj mi draga roko, through its fetchingly yearning vocal, subtly flirts with a polished moment of mysticism.
That Martin is also an excellent guitarist is already well known. Still, until the ninth track on “Rob” you can’t really notice it all that strongly, since the poetry is front and center, even though, guitar-wise too, the compositions keep presenting very inventive and interesting solutions (mid-eight passages). But you have to wait for the track Čas prihaja before Martin’s fingers on the guitar really come loose. The song is the album’s gloomy cumulus and its darkest moment, developing progressively, and as the drama builds, the guitar takes the initiative in the second half, stringing together psychedelic feelings and catching the very breath of that moment of such tricks from the generation of pioneers, from The Moody Blues to our own Dekameron. Čas prihaja really grabs hardest, and Martin masterfully uses oscillating microphone feedback and other handy tricks of hum and roar to fill the available sonic picture! The album closes with Domov, the most orthodox defender of the album’s singer-songwriter colors. The album opens with the cheeky Razpelo v gostilni, where Ramoveš approaches with a slightly altered vocal tone, sounding both mocking and disillusioned. The guitar phrase leads a jangle sound, as pleasing and organic as can be. The song is driven by a solid, flirtatious rhythm. An excellent opening catalyst for the album “Rob”. That leaves us with a pronounced blues number in Sanjajo mi rože, which, right after the opening Razpelo v gostilni, reveals a different vocal nature, that previously described “manly desperado” side of Martin’s vocal charisma, which he draws on for most of the album “Rob”.
After the album “Astronavti”, which was recorded and written in the style of a “one man” band, Martin Ramoveš returns to the Slovenian music scene rough, re-electrified and thickened up with rock. Although it’s a singer-songwriter album, it feels “band-like”, the way “Nesojeni kavboji” did, for instance. This is that meeting of rock and Ivan Rob’s razor-sharp poetry, which Ramoveš’s vision demanded and sought out for the album “Rob”. A meeting of great truthfulness between two poets, each living in his own time, and as the album “Rob” shows, this meeting is one more proof that tear-clear sincerity in art brings evergreen freshness and a timeless quality to a work of art. Martin Ramoveš handled the bold challenge with flying colors, and the album “Rob” shows the greatest expressive maturity to date from this young Slovenian singer-songwriter, who, we have no doubt, will keep surprising us with his ideas, courage and talent just as distinctively in the future.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Track list:
1. Razpelo v gostilni (04:12)
2. Sanjajo mi rože (03:37)
3. Legla je noč (03:14)
4. Kristal čaroben (03:07)
5. Črv (02:25)
6. Na rokah te nosil bom (03:37)
7. Le še eno pomlad (02:58)
8. Daj mi draga roko (02:56)
9. Čas prihaja (07:19)
10. Domov (02:41)
Musicians:
Martin Ramoveš – vocals, guitar
Marko Petrič – bass guitar, backing vocals
Luka Drobnič – drums, backing vocals
Žiga Lovšin – keyboards
Tina Petrovčič – backing vocals
