Artist: Bombaj štampa
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2010
Rating: 3.5/5
And here comes the third album from the once-famous Sarajevo band Bombaj Štampa. The lineup, which kicked off its career in the first half of the eighties, back in the days of the good old, dearly departed “Yugo”, was a herald of the “new primitivism” wave in Yu-rock at the time. Sadly, fate decided the band would release just two albums: the self-titled debut from 1987 and its follow-up from 1990, titled “Ja bolje letim sam”. The storm of war that swept over Bosnia and Herzegovina led to the band breaking up.
After almost twenty years, though, the guys found their way back together and started hitting the stages again. They also pulled together enough material for a new studio album. A holy lucidity and a dash of sarcasm, all too familiar whenever we look back at the rock of the Balkan peninsula that once built Yugoslavia, runs through the new studio album too, and the cheeky coinage of a title, “Nekaj DJ odmah dole CJ”, pretty much announces it up front. The cover is designed on the same principle as the last Zabranjeno pušenje album (Muzej Revolucije, 2009), which hints at the same designer’s touch. No yugo nostalgia without five-pointed stars, after all. Only these days they carefully steer clear of anything red.
Musically, the listener doesn’t need any scary Einstein-grade formulas to crack Bombaj štampa’s simple rock rhetoric in no time. No big rush. Slow and steady gets you far. Mostly the songs unfold in a spirit of lazy swaying, without a shred of pomp, frills or needless cosmetic clutter. The album is built on a love of blues and, above all, the Rolling Stones. The twelve songs have an organic, warm sound. You can’t miss the good old retro twang of the ever-reliable Telecaster, jangling away in the background and filling the bulk of the sonic picture, occasionally breaking into the foreground too (the ornamental slide ride in Ko si ti, for example).
The songs are played in a one-dimensional groove of musical expression, which is the basic sieve that defines the band’s listener base. You can feel the influences of good old rock n’ roll (the shape of the riffs, simple guitar passages) and blues, and of course the guys are huge Rolling Stones fans – the music of their youth, that is. Into the endearing swaying of the little songs they wittily weave extras like harmonica (Nedim) and the velvety sound of organs (Nije nas bilo dugo, To nije u džepu), and they back it all up with tickling female backing vocals (Palim se na guranje). Over the running time there are no shattering stylistic detours. The jump only comes with the album’s last track, really a bonus track called Vriska. Here the guys shift sharply into “higher” gear, stacking up a juicy mix of retro disco-funk eroticism, backed by horns and female backing vocals.
The album is fun and hugely listenable, and of course it reaches its full value and impact only if you understand Serbian and Croatian. The band thrives on the jargon of minimalism. Simple, easy, concise strokes that express the totally laid-back, relaxed character of its makers. Complete creative freedom from pressure and just a big dose of pleasure from spending hours in the studio, which gave birth to this album and its recognizably defined charm. The cherry on top is, of course, Branko Đurić’s vocal, with its tinge of cynicism, carved out for the needs of just this kind of rock sermon.
What you hear is what you get. Bombaj štampa don’t stray from the tried-and-tested musical jargon of their ID card, and with the new album they deliver a logical, dignified successor in the band’s natural evolution. Even though it has lost all relevance to today’s times, its relic status is enormously likeable in the present and actually welcome. It will be backed by a whole troop of yugo rock nostalgics and supporters of anything that smells even a little of bands like Zabranjeno pušenje, etc…And there are still plenty of those around today, so the band needn’t fear public ignorance or musical rejection. The album holds up as a whole. It’s coherently made, thematically compact and clearly defined in expression. Twenty years piled up enough ideas, and the band naturally picked the stronger songs for the album. A bellyful of yugo rock culture, then, that thaws the ice around your heart and brightens up any day, however gloomy.
Lineup
Branko Đurić – vocals, guitar (Plaža and Žena koje nema)
Nedim Babović – guitar, backing vocals (To nije u džepu)
Ernie Mendillo – bass guitar, backing vocals
Dragan Bajić – drums, percussion
Dženeta Olovčić – backing vocals
Alena Jusić – backing vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Vlado Podany – keyboards
Joe Baamil – keyboards
Eldin Bihorac – keyboards
Tarik Karačić – harmonica
Saša Lošić – backing vocals
Tanja Ribič – backing vocals
Željko Pancho Škarić – backing vocals
Muharem Vojniković – backing vocals
Production
Nedim Babović
Tracklist
01. Nije nas bilo dugo
02. Nedim
03. Palim se na guranje
04. Heroin
05. Žena koje nema
06. Ma ko si ti
07. Truba
08. To nije u džepu
09. Pregrađe
10. Neka traje
11. Evo jedne što se svira na plaži
12. Vriska
