Artist: Lapanja, Dejan
Label: Sedvex
Release: 2009
Runtime: 44:12
Rating: 4/5
Dejan Lapanja is no musical greenhorn. He’s a multi-instrumentalist with a nice pedigree, at least by Slovenian standards. A clear lover of jazz fusion and improvisation and experimentation in general, he’s a member of Ulixes, Salamandra Salamandra (Slovenian for “navadni močerad”, the fire salamander) and the improv collective Bast, and in the past he also played in Projekt mesto and Olivija. Plenty of good things about him could also be said by Laibach, Terrafolk, Vlado Kreslin, Vlatko Stefanovski, Vasko Atanasovski, The Fool Cool Orchestra, all of whom he has worked with, and many others. So the guy has racked up some serious mileage.
“Ni časa za preroke” proves that this time the right person got let loose in the studio paradise. Yep. Lapanja played everything on the album himself. All the instruments, the lead vocals on every track, and on top of that he produced the album too. No need to even mention that all the arrangements are his. Having all that power and know-how in one person is welcome for several reasons. The most banal one is that you can save a lot more money than you otherwise would. We’ll get to the others below.
What we have here is a deeply personal album. The lyrics hold hands nicely with the arrangements the whole way through. Logical. It all comes out of one head, which pretty much wipes out the danger of the parts accidentally “stepping on each other’s toes” while expressing themselves. It’s a lighter, loosely speaking rock album that, on one side, comes across as easygoing pop-mainstream in its breeziness, but Lapanja is far from satisfied with that. The dosing of jazz rock fusion elements, which accompany this album at every step, sounds great. Jazz rock fusion? If you haven’t figured it out by then, the closing “Cvet” will tell you everything.
The instrumental backing alone, a collage-like weave of background with a clear organic feel across keyboards, bass guitar and guitar supporting the vocals, especially on the more accessible tracks, confirms the musician’s smart use of his talent. He takes a trivially predictable motif here and there and builds it up and cements it, making excellent use of the available room to express himself, then crowns it all with the creation of juicy, hearty backdrops. That’s a hugely important element of the album, and it’s what makes it work in its clarity even in spots that could have smelled clichéd: varied throughout, dynamically undulating, wittily sparkling. This is a playful and super relaxed album. The love of jazz and experimentation simply play a very important role here. So it’s an album that will be praised both by those who struggle to make peace with the shallowness of today’s mainstream music and look for a deeper message in musical expression, and by all the less demanding listeners who can’t be bothered to think much when they tune in to radio stations. An ideal track for spinning on popular radio frequencies in Slovenia is, for example, “Se ne sekiram več”. Some jazz elements are dosed into the pop framework with real feeling, and that’s why this little “ditty” keeps all its interest. The second very successful candidate on the album, with a completely different compositional approach from “Se ne sekiram več”, and one that could also see more frequent rotation on domestic radio, is “Cesta srca”, with a neat duet featuring singer Martina Furlan. In this track the rock groove of the electric guitar is an important element that thickens the song’s overall message.
“Ni časa za preroke” is not Kreslin, not Mežek, not Predin, not Smolar. And it’s certainly not Plestenjak, God forbid! It’s a special album that is clearly unburdened by the influence of the big names on the world stage who stir the author’s creative inspiration. Quite the opposite. That very lack of baggage lets Dejan make every track on the album an authentic snapshot of the artist’s inspiration of the moment and the musical imagination of his own individuality.
“Ni časa za preroke” offers musical layering. Lapanja uses his knowledge and talent to strengthen minimalistically shaped basic motifs and dose them with just the right arranging touches. The warm, easygoing, thoroughly natural sound of the album carries a juicy substance and just the right balance of building blocks in everything. Against the naturally sounding backdrops, the electric guitar is often superbly woven in, with solos that add an important rock flavor to the album. This is an album that will reward you with rich, expressive, multilayered musical content and high listenability, since it’s a product you can listen to for an indefinite time, and one that won’t wear out after a few spins in your CD player. An achievement worth all your attention and warmly recommended on the Slovenian music scene. It smells thoroughly Slovenian! If the Slovenian mainstream were healthy today, this album would definitely belong in it.
Lineup
Dejan Lapanja – vocals, backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitar, bass guitar, drums, piano, synthesizers, ukulele, percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Vid Arnejšek – backing vocals on track no. 4
Martina Furlan – vocals on track no. 5.
Severa Gjurin – vocals on track no. 6.
Matej Magajne – electric guitar on track no. 11.
Production
Dejan Lapanja
Tracklist
1. Saj tudi sonce zaslepi
2. Tu in zdaj
3. Se ne sekiram
4. Hitiva hitiva
5. Cesta srca
6. Ples
7. Barve samote
8. Kar se večno zdi
9. Iluzija
10. Adamora
11. Cvet
