Moveknowledgement at Druga godba

Thank God we sometimes manage, despite our ignorance and unfamiliarity with a certain kind of music, to break out of the narrow confines of our musical preferences and reach for something we didn’t know before. So I’ll dare to admit it: just a couple of months ago I knew precious little about Moveknowledgement . Then, on the road to enlightenment, when the conversation turned to the Slovenian scene, all three records by this band from Novo Mesto and Ljubljana landed in my hands. My eyes were opened by none other than the dearest lady of my heart. Not long after came an intense infection with rhythm and truly smart, quality music. They’ve put out three records, and each one served up a fresh dose of adrenaline, with the latest shot into the veins coming just this March in the form of Listen To Nebukadnezar. Three records in, this rather overlooked Slovenian quintet announced an occupation of the open-air stage at Metelkova, so it was time to march off to the temple of the avant-garde, the alternative and the evening action in these almost-summer days.

After our homegrown heroes came the New York-Israeli oddballs and traveling circus Balkan Beat Box, whom I won’t be writing about this time. Partly because I don’t know them, partly because I didn’t have the strength to listen to them till the end. They were, let’s say, chaotic, fun, but pretty fragmented in substance, forced and posing like stars, which isn’t entirely my cup of tea. This time the glare of the spotlights and all the undivided attention belong to our own homegrown boys, Moveknowledgement…

This was actually one of the rare chances to see the guys on our stages after a pretty successful French tour. It’s a crew of funk-rock-jazz-fusion musicians who invited Slovenian freestyle rap champion N’Tok into their ranks, who shared the title with Trkaj. The chemistry was already noticeable on the debut, and on the latest record they exceeded expectations, even though the lineup got slightly trimmed down and they no longer have any lovely female singers. After arriving at Metelkova I look around the place. The stage was still empty, with Moveknovledgement frantically getting ready on it. One last check of the cables and mics, and then they leave the stage. There were still relatively few people. Maybe thirty. Perhaps a few more, and you could spot plenty of faces, from familiar ones of the media world to old acquaintances and completely lost souls who came to feed the insatiable beast of curiosity. The brief feeling of emptiness in front of the stage soon fades, though, as the first performers come on and pick up their instruments, and the fast-tongued microphone wizard N’Tok takes his place behind the sound manipulator, quite ritualistically. Ladies and gentlemen: It’s Moveknovledgement time!

They kick off their set with ‘Necrodog’. Heavy funk bass and keyboards reminiscent of the seventies. Of the golden age of artists like Billy Cobham and the like. The sexy beat is crystal clear and aimed at penetrating its way into your cerebellum and staying there. N’Tok’s vocals complete the whole in a complementary way. More black than white. Rougher and more heartfelt than the pop-rapper crap that fills the last corners of the warped MTV consciousness of Slovenian youth. The quality is obvious. They fill your ears and they own the stage from the very first moment. And the crowd starts, slowly but surely, to succumb to the rhythm and the word-and-sound landscapes. A track from the latest album Listen To Nebukadnezar is followed by something fresh. Or at least something never heard before. ‘Kids Are Fresh!’ is sonically a lot more aggressive and wild. After the first spiral of the evening, the meditative mists of the opening flight give way to shock and a wall of hard rhythm and somewhat more menacing shades. The bassist, eyes half-closed, follows the dictates of the guitar and drums. The band’s lead throat sails through his own world. There’s almost no direct contact with the crowd, yet the sheer power of what they’re offering is impossible to miss. It’s catharsis. A fireworks display of emotions pouring into the crowd’s consciousness reaps a new salvo of applause. After a short and almost shy “Thanks.” comes a fresh dose of the latest record. ‘I Was There’ cuts in the right direction with brittle guitars and a sticky, greasy bass. Electronic keyboard sounds and heavy rapping. As if American McGee’s Alice were on the march, the murderous version of Alice in Wonderland. Psychosis and a devastating tsunami of themes weaving a thick veil of the noblest pop blackness, with blood and sweat running down it. Worshipping monoliths is an optional solution. Remember Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. A plain and prehistoric men on it. Suddenly a black mass rises up in front of them. The pillar of an almighty god, passing the baton and the mission of unraveling things on. Into the hands of the chosen and previously uninitiated. ‘Monolith Birth’ sounds like funky surfing on sunbeams. The female vocals are gone. But what you get is sonic shamanism, an absolute dictate of positivity and musical superlatives for everything you knew from the local scene until then. The Andromeda nebula gets absorbed through the pores. I open my eyes. All around me more and more people who’ve realized that what we’re hearing is anything but a warm-up for something better. This is a gem, and up on stage the jewelers are carving their own likenesses, set in gold and refined sound. Moveknovledgement drift off into a newer fairy tale. ‘Barcode’ with its delay guitars fills the heart with cascades of dreaminess and pain. Like seeing the landscape of the Snow Queen. The color is white. Mechanically complemented by the metallic sound of samples, a slowed-down echo unravels into a musical theme reminiscent of dreams of being stoned and psychedelia. Electric humming. Then N’Tok’s stringing of words completes the whole into an etching of the grotesque and the majestic. The eclecticism of the moment intensifies from second to second. The chemical substances of happiness endorphins are topped off by the faster rhymes of the song ‘Chemicals’. Like listening to the Chemical Brothers. The Slovenian way, of course. ‘666’ strings together black pearls of the apocalypse in an electro-beat fashion. Heavy funk. Sexy keyboards and schizophrenic guitars. Like ants crawling over your cerebellum. And then hard guitar distortion that recalls the exorcism of France’s French Funk Fundation. The foundations are hard and solid. The sound holds up. It’s clean, clear and direct, and it forces you to jump around and energetically scrub your chakras clean. And then it’s already time for the last track. ‘I Am Zorr’ is a quirky blend of minimalism and the beauty of dub. The suspense is broken by layers of sampled vocals and guttural screaming, which N’toko strings together with the help of his magic little box, while the Pandora’s box is sexily topped off by keyboards, heavy drums, dreamy bass and syncopated guitar. Destruction. Flames. Annihilation of everything that was built before. Worlds collapse. Suddenly a cut. Silence, eclipse, a salute to the crowd and exit from the stage.

After the completed parabola of the musical discourse from the Novo Mesto-Ljubljana alliance, I can say that I was completely satisfied. Maybe they could have played a bit longer and unrolled more mosaics from their artistic world. Maybe they could have poured a drop more of enlightenment into our glasses, but even after this festival dose I’m more than happy with what was on offer. Moveknowledgement are definitely one of the better export products, and they deliver their imperative of movement, dynamics and musical purification more than confidently. They have charisma. They have knowledge. They possess an understanding of the know-how of creating and manipulating. They have form and they have substance. Unlike many a local bluesmonger and windbag, the guys deserve a clean ten this time too.