Label: Dallas Records
Release date: May 1997 / April 18, 2025 (vinyl reissue)
Production: Zvonko Tepeš
Album length: 46.46 min
Genre: Punk Rock / Hard Rock / Hip-hop
Rating: 8.0/10
Buy the album!
Dallas Records has spent quite a while now bringing back the foundational works that shaped, and keep shaping, the face of Slovenian rock music. Mi2’s debut “Črtica” definitely belongs among them. However tiny the budget this thing grew out of, Jernej and Fiki brought a few things to the table right from the start that no money can buy. A wide, flexible mind that, with a lush imagination and highly intelligent poetry and prose, provokes and entertains in just the right dose. It doesn’t repel. Quite the opposite. It pulls you in. At every step it doesn’t just surprise, it thrills, because it sounds different enough from everything else, in other words special enough, that we can talk about this album as the true cornerstone of a one-of-a-kind artistry. Just look at the lyrics, with their sharp gallows humor and that biting bitterness that black humor so often slyly covers up, and the rest is crystal clear. That very poetry is the foundation on which Mi2 would slowly win over the wider Slovenian masses.
Rogatec, February 1996. That wonderful corner of Slovenia, often hidden from the public eye. They can only be thankful for that. Right there, one long-ago day, two brave enthusiasts joined creative forces and decided to try their hand at writing music and poetry together! Look back at the modest beginnings behind the studio debut of Mi2, considering this is a band that has long been counted among the most beloved, we could even say in the entire history of rock ‘n’ roll in Slovenia, and there’s only one conclusion. The impossible is possible. Jernej and Fiki would tell you it pays to believe in miracles. And so the single Črtica came out, and it got a pretty nice haul of airplay back then. A good year rolls by. Into spring 1997, when the album of the same name finally lands. Quite a few musicians played on it, not just Jernej Dirnbek and Robert Firer – Fiki! This album still fires on all cylinders today, and gloriously so! So? Skim the cover and the whole thing looks like someone illustrated a fairy tale by Ela Peroci. Look closer at what’s inside, though: “Amid the intoxicating flowers of any old Rogaška meadow, two stout, horned mavrahs of virtuous nature sprout up,…”
A collision of rock and hip-hop. Excuse me? There weren’t many hip-hoppers in Slovenia back then. Ali-En was basically the one getting things moving, Jure Košir with Pasji kartel unexpectedly ‘burst’ onto the scene, Klemen Klemen was making appearances too, though he didn’t yet have a studio debut under his belt …
As far as arrangements go, the debut already shows that minimalism is the core of it all. That backdrop of musical minimalism communicates remarkably well with the message of the verses. Mi2 stayed true to this axiom in the future too, nurturing it faithfully. The verses of the debut already lay bare Dirnbek’s exceptional poetic skill and, in a way, downright genius. Those were the days, then, when testosterone ran riot in every superlative, which “Črtica” can’t hide (cover included), and so it’s an imprint of life without worries, without burdens, unshakable,…. Positive stuff, in other words. It worked far more healthily than how today’s society functions, when we only seek refuge for hanging out in digitally generated illusions on social media.
“Črtica” is a horned mix of punk, hard rock and hip-hop that addresses you head-on and knocks with its honest poetry straight at the hearts of the ‘little Slovenian guy’, who instantly finds himself in it. Beneath all the silliness that often has you laughing till you cry, cruel reality is slyly tucked into the lyrics too. That’s the connection to genuine, down-to-earth folk authenticity, with which Jernej and Fiki won over the Slovenian music audience from the very start, an audience that later made Mi2 a real part of its everyday life, and with that very folksiness Mi2, like it or not, became one of the biggest Slovenian rock bands. Not only that, we can even say they’re now among the most important rock acts of Slovenian time and place.
When it comes to merging the two elemental characters of this album, brought by the genres of hip-hop and rock (whether with a punk or hard rock tinge), “Črtica” is living proof of how beautifully this collision can coexist in brilliant harmony. The tunes aren’t demanding. Often it’s just bare narration (sometimes in multiple voices), dictation. Arrangement-wise, the delivery of the lyrics is underpinned by core rhythmic kinetics, and alongside it, tricks of programming and looping are deftly blended in, trying to sink their teeth into the guitar phrasing (the opener Nategni pobegni already hints at what the album has in store, and if guitars aren’t enough for you, ‘herbalist’ Zamisli se will hit you even harder). Even though the thing is very in-your-face and doesn’t beat around the bush, it took quite a bit of skillful ‘juggling’ in measuring out the artistic steps, which, in a “less is more” minimalism, effectively yield the expressive optimum.
“Portugalska al kak že” owes some thanks for inspiration to Lačni Franz’s Zarjavele trobente, “Aerosmith” doesn’t carry that title for nothing (check out the lead guitar phrase), and especially fun is the cover of the Partisan assault song “Bilečanka”, which keeps all its flinty toughness even under the baton of Jernej and Fiki.
At the tail end there are two tracks that can be treated as bonus tracks of the album. Črtica, the title single, has its Croatian twin – Crtica. While the Slovenian version caught on very well here and is still part of the band’s ironclad live repertoire to this day, its Croatian version didn’t make it. There’s also an indirect tribute to the heroes of Yugoslav comics (Lunov Magnus, Alan Ford) in the song “Puf Pant”, which is really the Croatian version of the opener “Nategni pobegni”. Crtica and Puf Pant can be understood as bonus tracks of the album. They in no way kill its momentum. If anything, the opposite. Their inclusion might well be the answer: it was an attempt to win over an audience on the other side of the Sotla and Kolpa rivers too.
So here it is, “Črtica”. On vinyl for the first time. The famous debut of Mi2. Perhaps the vinyl reissues will be followed by its successors too, which of course haven’t been available anywhere in physical form for ages. The album “Črtica” is a work with a solid dossier of tangible musical substance. With a cheeky character all its own! An authentic, vivid imprint of a time that left its mark on the face of mainstream music in Slovenia back then. It’s the foundational musical sacrament from which the Mi2 story slowly blossomed onward. And what matters most? Listening to this wackily lucid yet bold debut by Mi2, even (almost) three decades after its release, doesn’t stop mischievously stinging, thrilling and entertaining. That’s direct proof that this achievement has stood the test of time.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
Side A:
1. Nategni pobegni
2. Rovajnka
3. Črtica
4. Tehno pubec
5. Na škarpi sn sedau
6. Bilečanka
Side B:
1. Zamisli se
2. Proti vetru
3. Aerosmith
4. Portugalska al’kak že
5. Crtica
6. Puf Pant
Lineup:
Jernej Dirnbek – vocals, guitar, programming
Robert Firer – guitar, programming
Guest musicians:
Egon Herman – guitar
Vojko Hlupić – bass guitar
Vanja Janež – drums
