Venue: Menza pri Koritu, Metelkova, Ljubljana
Concert date: 29.04.2009
Attendance: 120
Ticket price: 5 €
The dust hadn’t even settled in my head after the Korai Orom show at Gala Hala when another interesting band from abroad landed on Metelkova. Well, not exactly abroad, since this one’s from Bosnia, and we still welcome our former brothers like Yugoslavia is still breathing. This time we got a visit from two brothers from Mostar, the duo Vuneny, an electro/post-rock phenomenon with a pretty solid history behind them (three albums, a bunch of gigs around Europe).
Until recently, Asmir Šabić was the third member of the band, chirping away and chipping in with whatever else was needed, but now it’s just the two of them. They’ve found their feet nicely and put out the album Whatever Singularity, which came out this year. The pair stopped by Metelkova to present their new baby, and they really did play quite a few tracks from it, which sound a bit more electronic than before and less rock, but still just as intense.
Vuneny’s music is honestly pretty original, but the duo (formerly a trio) has a certain way of putting songs together that you notice after listening for a long time. Mostly the compositions kick off with slow, atmospheric parts that build up in a post-rock fashion, then heavier drum’n’bass sections step into the foreground, and the guitars often thunder in too. You’d think all the tracks would end up sounding alike, but that’s not the case at all (go figure), because the band knows how to vary things well and keeps pulling in different motifs from all kinds of genres and different tempos.
The duo’s main strength is creating exceptional atmospheres, mostly very dark ones. At times they even reminded me of Guapo, only Vuneny are a less organic version of building post-rock and electronic hypnotic motifs.
From a strictly rock point of view, the gig was a bit too sample-based for me, but considering there are only two guys up there doing the job of about five people, that’s hardly strange. That’s why there was a lot of twisting knobs and pressing buttons, triggers, samples, loops, and very little straight-up playing. The most rock “live moments” came during the guitar parts and the occasional passages on keys.
The turnout was also a very nice surprise. I knew the duo was fairly well regarded, but I didn’t expect so many people to show up, and the crowd was clearly enjoying their composition-building and electronic rhythms.
Even though Vuneny is now just the domain of Zovko and Ćišić, it feels like nothing is missing. There may be a bit less rock than usual, and the music has become purely instrumental, but the drama is still there, and the two remaining members clearly managed to hold onto it. On Metelkova the pair delivered a lovely instrumental performance that pretty much all of us enjoyed.
Photos: Rok Podgrajšek and Ivana Kisegi
Setlist
1. Define Violence 2. Get Me a Horse 3. How We Are Connected 4. Tolerate Space 5. Anti-Thursday 6. Partizanska 7. Movement 8. Curse of Sound 9. We Gave Vasko Away, and The Planet is Male 10. Whatever Singularity 11. Hold That Thought
Photo Gallery
