Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Toxine
Label: Blue Tattoo Music
Released: 2015
Running time: 59:32
Rating: 4.5/5
Toxine, an experimental outfit from Koper and its surrounding area, are back after two years with a brand-new album, »Now O’Clock«. In the meantime they’ve swapped out their entire rhythm section. Musical provocation remains the core of the band’s expressive craft on the new record, and there’s no doubt about it from the first few bars of the funk-teasing opener, the playful instrumental Float Your Signifier. The first track serves up the basic instrumental backdrop that stretches across the rest of the album. It packs a full hour of material and hands over a fresh, tough bone to gnaw on, tailor-made for the most demanding music consumers.
If I may indulge in a bit of free-form philosophizing up front about why the new album came out on an Italian label, the key lies in the fact that in the seventies progressive rock was far more popular in Italy than it ever was in Yugoslavia or Slovenia. The Italians can boast a homegrown guard of bands that, back then (globally speaking), founded a distinct branch of prog rock. Some of them, like PFM, Le Orme and New Trolls, are still going today. Over the years a strong artistic sense and a respectful attitude toward prog rock, as well as the RIO/avant-prog genre, grew in the culture of our western neighbor. Comparisons with Slovenia are almost out of place here. Over here, labels’ sympathy for prog rock is frankly bizarrely nonexistent, and if I push it a bit further, you can even run into the anomaly of the alternative rock camp, in the extremes of “intellectual polemicizing”, trying to adopt even Buldožer “as their own”. So it’s no surprise that Toxine decided to fend for themselves to protect their art integrity, teaming up with friends on the Italian side and the label Blue Tattoo Music, which took care of releasing this otherwise excellent new album. One more little thing that’s a given abroad but here more exception than rule: the album’s »tray card« even carries a barcode, so let’s hope you’ll actually find this record on the otherwise impoverished Slovenian shelves of audio-media shops.
The musical character of the album is still largely built on spontaneous jamming, out of which the songs take their final shape. But on »Now O’Clock« you can feel a gradual streamlining and trimming of the musical substance, which brings more tangible motivic compactness to the arranging, as hinted at in the tracks Toxins vs. Toxine and/or Heyday, both of which have catchy peaks in their chorus melodies. Skin Cryin For Yin, stretched out yet casually dreamy, near the end of the album comes close to this too, with a stock musical form of chorus melody that’s been used in countless different musical stories in the rock world.
On the new album Toxine once again don’t burden themselves with genre formats, and instead drift freely and, I might add, carefree past the templates, and with their bold “challenging of their own musical ego trips” they keep effectively unveiling undiscovered dimensions of new musical expanses that surprise the listener, keep them superbly occupied, and now and then flat-out shock them. This (self-)discovery is the fruit of the band members’ self-made musical perception, which in the truthfulness of its conceptual expression is completely unconcealed and therefore unique. From there it’s not hard to conclude that Toxine are a band with a thoroughly homegrown, instantly recognizable musical ID card. »Now O’Clock« too is an album of original, self-sprung content, and hunting for parallels is at best distracting, if not downright tasteless.
The band is an interesting derivative of a lucid-dark blend of the many faces of musical expressionism, which they drift through completely spontaneously and unpredictably, mostly on the new album as well. .As far as the expressive yield of the instrumental side of the crew goes, Toxine can be described as a kind of progressive rock, also jazz-rock fusion, where shades of blues, funk, alternative rock and pop find their way into the arrangements too. It’s harder to pin the labels of avant-garde and Rock in Opposition (RIO/Avantgarde) on them, even though the guys constantly “challenge” and “tease” the listener with their unbridled experimenting.
With his recognizable, striking vocal contribution, Tomi Toth remains the tipping point that decides whether you’ll love Toxine or hate them. Given all the “multilayered scatteredness” of the arranging (its fragmentation), you could easily cook up a recipe for a Toxine that doesn’t need vocals at all. The impressive work of constant instrument exploration keeps even the most demanding music gourmet fully occupied. But Toth is an oddball with his fully developed vocal charisma, and a story all his own. Case closed. When it comes to delivering the poetry, you can hardly imagine a more fitting voice for Toxine. He’s annoying, lucid, biting, needling, mocking, piercingly sharp, can be downright cynical, and also subtly wistful and soft when the message of a song demands it of him. A man of many faces, then. Back in the RockLine review of the album »Ever Wordless« (2013) it was already noted that Tomi would fire up most easily with this kind of approach and tone of voice in post-punk bands like The Cure and Dexys Midnight Runners, and I won’t be overdoing it if I toss in some “2 Tone ska punk” representative too, say Madness.
The track Metatune is a kind of dedication to the figure and work of the immortal, one-of-a-kind genius Frank Zappa. The fondness for Zappa is hardly surprising given guitarist Samo Turk’s other gig with the band Ya Hozna, which is (performance-wise more than credible) a Slovenian Frank Zappa tribute band. This very track, as well as Good News For A Lost Generation further on, with their especially expanded and complexly conceived arrangements, are real tough nuts to crack performance-wise, demanding an especially thorough, filigree execution from Toxine, full of thoughtfulness and concision. The guys pull it off with the great distinction of exceptional tightness, though it doesn’t follow that Toxine are a must-experience live. In their brilliant tightness, full of spontaneous and unpredictable twists, they simply enchant.
All in all, on the new album Toxine keep juggling very skillfully with the substance of hard-to-grasp melodies, often exploring in atonal forms, but never lapsing into chaos. That’s why the album »Now O’Clock« demands several spins in a row. And of course a thick skin and the high endurance of the average cochlea and eardrum. The instruments breathe freely throughout thanks to excellent mutual awareness (symbiosis), constantly leaving each other open space in the motifs for the implantation of witty improvisations and adventures in musical exhibitionism, crowned by none other than Toth’s vocal excess. »Now O’Clock« keeps the shine of an experimental-progressive rock one-of-a-kind, and with this new album Toxine hold on to their pedigree as absolute musical oddballs of the Slovenian scene.
Lineup
Tomi Toth – vocals, “šundr”
Samo Turk – guitar, backing vocals
Žiga Fabbro – saxophone, synthesizers, backing vocals (and more)
Erik Čebokli – bass guitar
Aleš Zorec – drums
Production
Mitja Cerkvenik
Tracklist
1. Float Your Signifier
2. Budget Symphonia
3. Toxins vs. Toxine
4. Metatune
5. Heyday
6. Six Ate Each Other
7. Forgive The Weather
8. Sottovento
9. Good News For The Lost Generation
10. Skin Crying For Yin
11. Periods Part 2
