Artist: Kuzle
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2010
Runtime: 41.06
Rating: 4/5
What can you say about a band that landed in the right time at the wrong place, became history after just two years, yet left behind a rich legacy in that short span? Not in a technical sense, or in the sense of towering intellectual feats backed by enlightened musical visionaries of a new age. It was the early eighties, and the punk wave was already shaking Slovenian rock ground to its foundations, in all the freshness of the primal grime and rowdiness of street-corner, pub-brawl vandalism. Why wouldn’t it? It was mocking, it was direct, and it showed that ordinary people off the streets could pick up instruments and grab a mic, people who barely manage a sequence of two or three chords, yet can confess in verse and pour out all the hardship and injustice of the little guy.
Lately we’ve been witnessing a hailstorm of similar releases from the Dallas label. Preserving this legacy matters. Slovenian in general, and when you look at Dallas’s attitude toward this segment, it’s all praiseworthy! The people in charge at the label have once again shown the right attitude toward protecting this kind of repertoire, with careful reissues of albums and artist catalogs from the responsible pillars of the legacy of Slovenian rock music, especially when it comes to reissuing material by the artists who founded the Rijeka new wave.
So it was the turn of our friends from Idrija. But the material they recorded in those distant years was, in the eyes and ears of the main players, of such poor quality that it was deemed completely unusable, on any audio carrier whatsoever, for the planned, historic first release of “kuzle material”. Never mind. In fact, what followed was a move that, to a musician, is an even bigger challenge, one that only stirs you up more and, as an inspiring move, keeps you attractively busy. Re-record the old material. A classic practice, well established abroad for a good ten years or so, finally got its premiere on Slovenian soil too. You’d say, nothing new. Still. If we compare where today’s so-called alternative rock stands with the authenticity of the punk character of the rock sermon of the first bands, who started acting in the spirit of true disobedience, you can freeze right down to your bones with justified fear of such double-edged moves, when it comes to tampering with the authenticity of the recordings. But watch out. The scissors and the canvas, in this case, stayed in the band’s hands. And so the guys decided to step into the studio and “burn through” (Yes! Burn through!) the material once more. The energy unleashed in the studio and caught on tape kept all of its authenticity. What’s more, it’s been upgraded in quality. It remains garage-grade, brilliantly packaged, sharpened, uncompromising, knows no penance, doesn’t doodle little flowers, doesn’t weep pathetically about anything. And most importantly: it passed the test of time with flying colors!
As such, it vividly paints the anger of the proletariat of days long gone, which (oh, how contradictory), amid today’s TV parade of leeches and godfathers of corruption in the new state order, we miss badly. All the more commendable, since today the members of Kuzle are well-off, middle-aged men with no real reason left to wrap their confessional urge in genuine rebellious fury.
So? We call that feeling. Something that runs through your blood and quietly simmers in your veins. It lies dormant and waits for the right levers to be pulled for a new birth. Kuzle offer 21 tracks of punk authenticity that can stand comparison with the greatest achievements of the punk rock industry’s golden age, and that today’s “kids” who (often out of privileged boredom) “play punk” don’t know and can’t even sense.
So I can only say one thing. Welcome to a good 40 minutes of a lesson that belongs in the record collection of every fan and worshipper of the Slovenian rock scene, while all true punk lovers have long had their copy of this CD on their shelves. Kuzle are shocking in their directness, audacity and the shedding of blunt energy that, even after 30 years, remains an unbridled embodiment of defiance and a stainless creed of time and space, one that left a permanent scar on a generation whose heralds these Idrija true believers were. Three chords or two, Buni’s dissonant, out-of-tune barking, the song Moja mama in its most authentic original, for all of you who know the later hit by Videosex,… The rhythm section is the fuel source of Kuzle, driving the wagon of delirium into the abyss of perdition. The cohesion between bizarrely simple, unbridled, ignition-ready riffs, a down-to-earth rhythm section wheezing like a steam locomotive, and the vocal commanding it all, has emerged once again in the studio. In the manner the band wanted back in the eighties, but wasn’t destined to get. The wish smoldered for thirty years and its flame never went out, or “cracked”, for a moment. It waited for the right wind to fan it one last time into tongues of fire that won’t merely lick your ears but will properly scorch what’s under your skull. 21 tracks, the shortest three quarters of a minute long, the longest two minutes longer than that, competing in action-packed perversions of the brave street-level illegal revolt of days gone by, finally available for genuine consumption.
With this release, the Slovenian rock scene has also gained a new historical record, making it easier to trace its development from the origins to the present day. As such, it’s an important resource especially for the generation that didn’t live through this era, finally bringing it closer in an understandable and as accessible a way as possible. The missing piece of the mosaic has found its rightful place with the album “Še pomnite tovariši?” and Kuzle proudly stand with it shoulder to shoulder with the more important Slovenian acts of their time. From different genre spheres. From Pankrti to Pomaranča and Lačni Franz.
Lineup
Bojan Lapanja (Buni Kuzla) – vocals
Dare Kaurič – guitar, backing vocals
Dušan Moravec (Dule Dule) – bass, backing vocals
Iztok Turk (Itko) – drums
Production
Iztok Turk
Tracklist
1. Prazna generacija
2. Reka-Postojna-Lublana
3. Sedim in pijem pir
4. Vahid Vahid
5. Moja mama
6. Smej se
7. Amapk men se zdi…
8. Vse je isto
9. Ti si zvezda
10. Superlim
11. Fabrka
12. Ostan idiot
13. Ne vi mislt…
14. Igor silni
15. Naredte revolucijo
16. Sonja je mrtva
17. Star in gnil
18. Na cesti
19. Poljubi me
20. Skrivnosti mladih src
21. Vse je v redu
