Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: N3L
Label: Celinka
Release: 2015
Length: 31:11
Rating: 4/5
If you rotate crops on your field by switching up the vegetables from plot to plot, repeat the cycle every three years and leave the field fallow in the last year so it can recover, that means you’re running a three-year rotation with fallow. Let’s say. I’m no farmer and hardly a relevant source here, but I hope these notes, filed away in my brain’s processor since primary school and history class, are still relatively accurate.
Natriletno kolobarjenje s praho is a project by theater director, actor, author, translator and performer (vocalist too) Jure Novak and multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Uroš Buh . So together they rotate exemplarily. Effectively. In 2013 they took the Zlata kanta (the Golden Can), first prize, at the KantFest festival in Ruše, which earned them a recording day at Studio 22 of RTV Maribor.
One recites, declaims; the other raises hell. NL3 are hands down true oddballs of the Slovenian musical-theatrical scene. There’s nowhere you can slot them. Although »Natriletno kolobarjenje s praho« has hints of cabaret-chanson theater, it’s decidedly far from the approaches of, say, Same Babe, and because we’re dealing with a duo, and because of the effective use of the minimalist axiom »less is more«, you can’t lump them in with alternative-rock projects either (Incurabili, Alli Strings Detached and the like…), even though the album’s content will land squarely with fans of the Slovenian rock underground as well as fans of singer-songwriter music, since the poetry carries an exceptionally strong message.
This thing simply doesn’t let you catch your breath. It’s a work that dissects the psyche of the average Slovenian Joe and Jane with serious authenticity. You’ll have a hard time getting as genuinely to the heart of Slovenianness as this record does. Jure Novak is an outstanding interpreter, he throws himself into roles without any brakes and peppers them with the chameleon act of a thousand faces. In fact, his declamation and recitation, which swings between schizophrenic bursts of frenetic screaming (Čakam organe) and caressing whispers, even vocal melody, and lives at both extremes of his delivery, is the core of this record’s swagger.
»Natriletno kolobarjenje s praho« carries concrete traces of avant-garde music. Anyone who knows their stuff about acts like NLP (Na lepem prijazni), or even Buldožer, will prick up their ears. Even though the music is cut from a totally different cloth, the vibes are very close to those comparisons. Amid Novak’s seething, caustic delivery and the nervous rage of Buh’s guitar riffs, things can go dead calm in the very next moment, though Novak never stops »provoking«. He leans effectively on escalating theatrics (with gradation), leading the poetry step by step to its climax. He pulls it off with feather-light ease, and in the closing Ženske this »provoking« of his is especially fascinating.
The record bursts with energy. Given the irony and sarcasm, which are in no short supply, it’s clear the album is draped in the black of thoughts and feelings. The album springs from the inner world of an individual, but it’s also armed to the teeth with social critique! The album’s integral track is definitely Šef in akt. It’s a record that makes you laugh till you cry, yet doesn’t skimp for a second on the bitter acid of everyday reality, which fills the everyman of the Valley of St. Florian with anxiety. What does that look like? Slovenian »morbida« in 2015! And Natriletno kolobarjenje s praho is its thoroughly authentic imprint. A wild experiment that talks to you provocatively the whole way through, hits straight and head-on, and is untamed in its truthfulness. Right to the core of every one of us. A people’s album, then, that will be rolling around the folds of your brain for a good while!
Lineup
Jure Novak – lyrics, vocals
Uroš Buh – guitar, percussion, vocals
Production
Igor Vuk & Gregor Zemljič
Tracklist
1. Na pavzi
2. Presežna vrednost bivanja
3. Iščem čakam
4. Šef in akt
5. Čakam organe
6. Dnevnik nedni
7. Moja ulica
8. Ženske
