Orto Fest: Getting Intimate with Intimn Frizurn

 There are few Slovenian acts right now who can boast a sound that’s entirely their own, without a whiff of imitation. Ljubljana’s Intimn Frizurn are practically the poster children for it. For a good year now, maybe a bit longer, they’ve been defending the banner of Slovenia’s sleepy alternative scene with a mix of musical influences so different that they’ve mutated into something living on its own. From multisound to a freshly generated IF sound, best described as somewhere between a pop-tinged Mr. Bungle and a feel-good funky take on reggae at full speed. You’d expect something like that sooner in France, where the multicultural mix of Algerian, Moroccan and Turkish immigrants and native French has put a little sea of funk, rap, reggae and even rock with a very exotic twang on the local shelves. But here we’re talking about Slovenia, a place where any departure from rigidly dictated musical guidelines is very rare. Intimn Frizurn are undoubtedly part of this fresh offering, serving you their cocktail of sound in the form of their debut KokosKokos Presenta: Intimn Frizurn, and they’re even more convincing live.

I’d seen them a few times already, and every time they sounded different. Curious what sonic costume they’d put on for their Orto Fest set, I headed for the center. Tuesday’s sunny day was fading into the slight chill of a calm evening, and in front of Ljubljana’s temple of May culture and music, Orto bar, there was nothing until nine o’clock to suggest anything special or interesting going on in the guts of the first floor. No posters anywhere shouting anything in big letters or with a provocative picture. Just the ticket guy at the bar, visibly in a good mood and well rested this time, who every now and then pulled a stack of tickets out from under the counter and charged the guests trickling into the place a bearable 5 € for one. Still, by ten o’clock the first floor had filled up with a pretty nice crowd of 50 or so people, maybe a few more. The lights dim. Intimn Frizurn climb onto the stage. Visibly calm and ready for group meditation.

From the very first chords, the opening song leaves a strong whiff of the exotic: ‘Shupak’ rides swaying beats of oriental-tinged reggae and then cuts in with a concrete-solid yet tasteful distorted guitar sound. The band sounds flawless and confident from the first chord on. A gorgeous overture for the energetic kick of the sped-up beat of ‘Chobanske’, where they completely let loose. Milan Jerkić is without doubt one of the most relaxed frontmen on the Slovenian scene, and he’s got something that not everybody in our neck of the woods has: charisma. The rest of the band get pulled in by it quite naturally, and the one who carved out his own visible piece of the stage is above all the tattooed guitar exorcist Žiga Rangus. From the background, the rhythm duo of Iskra – Kranjc back him up very decently and very erotically, and every so often Matej Froebe’s keyboards chime in. Intimn Frizurn keep rolling their film, or rather the soundtrack of life and of more or less bizarre but no less attractive mental excursions. Next comes the weird funkadelia of ‘Snow’, which continues the cyclical flight around an orbit of spontaneous movement, tight rhythmic synchrony and erotic sound, all working flawlessly as a whole, a bit more contemplative and seasoned just right for all the fans of, say, The Mars Volta who need their dose of Balkan melos in off-beat kolo form. After it comes the rumble of ‘Kataifikataifi’, an instrumental lasting a couple of minutes. The slower tempo and the tighter huddling of bodies bring on what I think is one of the nicest songs from Kokos Kokos Presenta: ‘Hide, Baby!’. A slightly melancholic, schizophrenic vision of love and existence. Longing in bodily form. And how would a Monday morning sound? They set that to music with something that could be the musical twin of the previous song, moved into brighter, more optimistic registers: ‘Monday Morning’. And after a string of old songs, here’s a taste of the new ones on the menu, with which they plan to season their next record, which is already taking clear shape: ‘Funkina Basso’. A gentle offbeat and above all a much more organic form of what Intimn Frizurn have mutated into over these years of building their music from scratch. ‘Street Lights’ is a vision of a city you’d look down on from Ljubljana Castle, and right after it comes one of the more inventive, and above all original and utterly one-of-a-kind covers of a jazz classic with an urban alt feel: ‘Summertime’. I can just imagine this version on the record standing as an entity all its own, one you start dancing and whistling to all day long over a slightly altered rhythm and an already well-worn tune. Very convincing. Very natural. Very erotic and sexy. After ‘Salvenia’ and an energetic, unexpected shot of doping in the form of ‘Bounce’, it’s back to reviving more familiar sentiments. ‘The Fall’. An intro full of bass and drum rhythm flows into guitar ambient. Summer’s over before it even began. Or is it? To keep us from nodding off, a pretty even rhythm gets broken up by the disruption of ‘Coitus Interruptus’, where, as a few times already, a kazoo-like take on the saxophone sneaks into the whole. After a minute of articulated madness, it’s time to shift into a higher gear: ‘Shake It’, after which Milan leaves the stage and dances off to the front lines in a completely solo shamanic ritual of dance catharsis. ‘Can’t Let Go’ sounds almost rockish. To hell with purism and clean lines! That these guys are at home above all in gluing together musical collages of jazz fusion, reggae, funk rhythm and guitars is proven by yet another gem of the night: the beautiful and irresistibly attractive ‘Maria’, after which it’s time for something completely new and still untested: Balkan rappers like Edo Maajka and company have got a confident rival. By then Milan had already proven his tongue runs like it’s oiled, but after the rap outpouring of his own history, even the biggest doubters, the ones who’d question this young band’s linguistic, intellectual and above all inspirational potential, are shut up. How about some more jazz to finish? No problem. After the closing assassination by jazzy melos, it’s time to move from mental and emotional transcendence into a state of making peace with reality. The concert was irrevocably over. The show is over, honey!

After the Intimn Frizurn experience, only two things are possible. If you’re a music connoisseur hungry for fun and sonic experiments laced with sarcasm, your appetites were more than satisfied. As for all those conformists who, in their conservative logic of musical purism, wanted to hear some string of cover-band hits, Intimn Frizurn poured a potion into their ears that they’ll surely have a hard time washing out. Intimn Frizurn are entertainers. They’re also visionaries and nonconformists. They’re provocation. They can be a circus too, but they’re undoubtedly one of the most important potentials on the Slovenian music scene. Long live the IF sound! Viva la musica infinita!