Artist: Moskva
Label: Dallas Records
Released: 2012
Runtime: 44:09
Rating: 4/5
Rijeka has always had a reputation as the city in Croatia where the best rock gets made. In every sense. The most adventurous, the most defiant, zero compromise when it comes to chasing the latest trends as dictated by corporate ruthlessness. Plain and simple. Over the years, from the boom of the Rijeka new wave in the late seventies onward, the Kvarner Gulf area has produced plenty of bands with strictly defined sonic identities and a unique musical charisma.
Moskva is a band that’s barely two years old, and they’ve already pushed out a studio debut! It was announced in the middle of the year by the excellent single »U tvojim rukama«, backed up with a video, and the young band cemented its credibility with a second single and video, for the track »Paragraf«. »U tvojim rukama« is such a strong song that even after you spin the whole album »Poligraf« from start to finish, it still stands as one of the record’s highlights.
Moskva are a continuum of the Rijeka new wave for new times. If nothing else gets you there, the realization will: the band was steered in the studio by the seasoned production hand of Matej Zec, who lived through the unforgettable era of the Rijeka new wave with Let 3. From the opening bars of »Ne boli me«, the sonic kinship with a band like Morso is there instantly, even though in terms of expression Moskva and Morso are miles apart. It’s just the vibe, the mood, the melos… some general disposition, roughly speaking, that ties the Rijeka bands together like an invisible thin thread, carrying a vibration they all share and by which they get recognized almost immediately. The Rijeka school tradition is strong, and the album »Poligraf« doesn’t hide it for a second.
Moskva aren’t reinventing the wheel with their musical sermon, but they are a special blend of characters. As legitimate heirs to the Rijeka new wave, they draw on the Kvarner tradition’s vocabulary for how punk music is perceived, then dose it with pop melodicity, brought in above all by the sweetly seductive singing of vocalist Tamara Dorčić (ex-Putokazi). The framework of clearly contrasting sonic building blocks is built up by a highly intelligent, melodic, voluminous and warm bass line. The main carrier of the art charisma, which rests on an interplay of noise impulses and psychedelia, is the deliberately dissonant, howling guitar. Even with its feeling of being stripped bare (deliberate, of course – this is how the band builds most of the album’s signature atmosphere), it brings the bulk of the album’s contrasts, especially when you set it on the other side of the scale against the melodicity of lead vocalist Tamara. It’s an extreme but compatible contrast, the starting point for the strongly engraved art element that defines Moskva’s music. One such intensified clash of the two elements comes with the track Uhoda.
Several guitars are layered one on top of another. Together they form a voluminous wall of accompaniment. One line holds chords that sit nicely with the vocals, while the next one, recorded over it, stirs up crackling dissonant tones that expose the triviality of the basic accompaniment’s phrases. That exposed dissonant crunch floods parts of the songs again and again, especially the instrumental sections, and it’s the factor that decisively shapes the mood of the tracks. Banal, but incredibly effective. The guitars bring in the psychedelic element and the noise element. “Lopov”, with its lead, almost doom phrase of a cranked-up riff, sounds downright mind-warped and subversive in its closing instrumental section, enriched with dissonant lines.
You could say that Moskva are now filling the void on the Rijeka scene that opened up after Morso (who are supposedly coming back with a new album, by the way) came to a complete creative standstill following their studio debut »Izlog« (2008). Even though the two are clearly different in artistic terms, it’s precisely this strong, unique art definition that connects them energetically.
Moskva are a seasoned quartet who know how to arrange songs into a cumulus of highly infectious melodicity, rock crunch, the provocation of sonic experiment and a dash of their own art charisma, which opens the door for them to reach the status of one of the most respected art pop rock bands on the scene
The rhythms are inherited straight from the rich treasure chest of the Rijeka new wave! The witty touches rain down from the rhythmic solutions once used by Ogledala, Mrtvi kanal, Grad… and the story continues with Moskva.
The detailing of the individual tracks was optimized thanks to special guests on the album, such as the seasoned old fox and keyboardist Vedran Križan (Fiumens, Manofoni), then Vlado Simchich-Vava, who contributed lap steel guitar (the track Lopov), and Matej Zec with rustic Mellotron touches (Lomim valove, Poligraf). The closer Otok in particular shows off the creative power of the team in the studio: the minimalism of predictable punk pop arranging, with the band’s typical art charisma, is upgraded by a prolonged instrumental outro, which gives the album a real, honest-to-goodness ten-minute mini epic suite with a touch of progressive art freedom. That very experience suggests that Moskva are multilayered musicians who don’t want to set creative boundaries for themselves. Instead, they want to defy convention unburdened in their artistry and draw ideas strictly from whatever their artistic heart dictates. »Poligraf« is a gorgeous piece of work, full of creative insight and polished art charisma, which we hope the band will keep nurturing and deepening in the future.
Line-up
Tamara Dorčić – vocals
Vladimir Tomić – guitar, effects
Goran Grgurev “Grga” – bass guitar
Ivan Ujević – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Vedran Križan – keyboards
Matej Zec – Mellotron (tracks 2 and 4), programming, percussion
Vlado Simcich “Vava” – guitar, lap steel on track 8, production on track 9, programming on track 9
Production
Matej Zec
Tracklist
1. Ne boli me
2. Poligraf
3. Bumerang
4. Lomim valove
5. Uhoda
6. Spavam sama
7. U tvojim rukama
8. Lopov
9. Otok
