Moonlight Sky Touch the Sky at Kino Šiška (2012)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Ljubljana / Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: April 16, 2012
Attendance: 130
Ticket price: €5.00

Moonlight Sky remain a true oddity on the Slovenian music scene. Since day one they’ve cultivated a complex style built on fusing all sorts of musical elements, with an emphasis on jazz, though the easiest label for it would still be progressive rock. After vocalist and keyboardist Andraž Kržič left, Moonlight Sky reinvented themselves as an instrumental trio (hence the decision to change the name to Moonlight Sky Trio) with the occasional guest. The lineup is guitar wizard Miha Petric, bassist Janez Moder and drummer Žiga Kožar. In this new lineup, presenting their latest album »Changing Parameters« (2012), they played in the small hall of Kino Šiška. By the time the up-and-coming instrumental trio hit the stage, the small hall had filled up with a healthy crowd of fans of technically and atmospherically complex, polished music, the kind that local acts sadly leave us craving far too often. Moonlight Sky Trio didn’t let us down this time either, just as expected.

After a short intro courtesy of guest keyboardist Jan Sever, all three members of the band came out and played a brand-new track called »Kofomašina«, which you won’t find on any Moonlight Sky studio release so far. Janez Moder kept things tight all night with a solid helping of bass lines, delivering effective rhythmic cohesion, while the jazz-minded Žiga Kožar remains an unusually versatile drummer by local standards, one who often surprises with interesting transitions around the cymbals. The main attraction and central figure of the band is of course guitar phenomenon Miha Petric, who was not only in great form this evening but, during his passionate solo flights, often got carried away ‘among the stars’, or rather ‘toward the sky’.

With dynamic renditions of new pieces like »Labyrinth«, »Seven Gringos« and »In the Centre«, joined by a few long-time favorites, Moonlight Sky Trio vividly demonstrated the interesting shift in sound that you can also hear on their latest studio release. Besides a purely instrumental jazz fusion with flecks of blues here and there, their new sonic direction has noticeably more pastoral, acoustic folk elements. On the numbers where guest violinist Vasja Centrin and keyboardist Sever joined them on stage, their new style even took us back to the golden days of the legendary Canterbury scene of British progressive rock. It wouldn’t hurt at all if they kept nurturing and refining this direction on future studio projects. The encore opened with the »I Am« (2009) staple »Chautauqua«, which was a really nice surprise for many in the hall. They followed it with an excellent cover of Leb i Sol’s »9/8«, which Vlatko Stefanovski would surely have liked too. Amid thunderous applause the band members took a bow before the crowd, who mostly couldn’t come to terms with the fact that the show by our top-notch instrumental trio was over way too soon.

With an energetic show full of ambient highs, mostly thanks to Petric’s guitar wizardry, Moonlight Sky Trio once again proved they remain a one-of-a-kind musical phenomenon on the home scene. Here, apart from the commercially overlooked but qualitatively solid jazz fusion scene, progressive rock sadly never managed to spread its wings, let alone break beyond the borders of Slovenia. So it would be a real shame if a band with the potential and talent that Miha, Janez and Žiga possess didn’t finally land a more-than-deserved breakthrough abroad.