Artist: Brain Holidays
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2006
Neighboring Croatia has finally got its first official roots reggae album, after about two years of recording at the start of last year, and the honor went to the debut ‘Stereo Roots’ from Brain Holidays, a band that’s been around since 2000. The single ‘Crvena Žuta Zelena’ announced the album nicely, but they still took their time, because as they put it themselves, reggae is the kind of music where you can’t plan recording and release schedules, you go for a looser, more laid-back approach. Well, Dennis Emmanuel Brown didn’t exactly stick to that principle either, but anyway…. Here it is, and we can be glad about that.
Brain Holidays are a nine-piece from Zagreb with the usual lineup (bass, drums, guitar and keys) plus a horn section (sax, trombone and trumpet) and two young women on backing vocals. They’re definitely a name that has caught on in the Croatian music scene, and the packed halls at their shows are proof. They launched themselves mainly by organizing and playing the by-now traditional ‘Tribute To Marley’ parties, held in memory of one of the greatest musicians of all time, an ambassador of peace and awareness, and an icon of reggae music in general. Even though it was made on a modest budget, their music immediately set off a big wave of interest across all of Croatia’s media, from TV to print. They’ve also picked up quite a few important awards (Crni mačak, Demo mačak – for the most promising local band), and we’ve seen them at festivals like Soča Reggae Riversplash, Rototom Sunsplash (Italy – where they played as winners of the contest for the new Balkan reggae act), Samo Reggae Stan (Slovenske Konjice), Seasplash (the first Croatian reggae festival), Istria In Reggae, Rock Otočec, Zagreb Open Air, Heineken Music Festival (Bosnia and Herzegovina – where they were named best foreign band) … And the fact that the Holidays love music is also shown by their members playing in plenty of other bands and music projects, for example Soul Train, Detour (ex-Yammat), Cubismo, HGM, Green House Blues, Dino Dvornik, Massimo, the musical “Kosa” and so on. They first played in Ljubljana on March 31, 2006, on a bill with Cubismo. Despite all the accolades, though, you might want to take the equation of this album with the start of roots in Croatia with a grain of salt, since there are more and more roots, dub, reggae and ska bands around, and some of them have already put out albums too. Maybe they put them out themselves, i.e. in the ‘underground’ and on small labels, but of course, these days, with labels having a harder and harder time, a ‘home label’ can do quite a lot for releasing and promoting an album. Case in point, there’s also Radikal Dub Kolektiv, who play dub, but roots is, at least officially for now, still the turf of Brain Holidays alone, even though there are a few bands that mix different genres and you can quickly hear elements of roots in their sound.
So let’s get to the long-awaited record itself, which involved 23 musicians and three producers. The first thing that catches the eye is the rather unimaginative design of the cover and booklet, which makes the disc look kind of cheap, and the credit for that goes to the band’s driving force, vocalist, guitarist and amateur designer Marko a.k.a. ‘Marcus G.’ But fine, the content comes before the cover, and if it’s done in rasta colors you can spot from a mile away, so even the blind notice it, that’s fair enough too, since the guys say they’ve put a lot of effort into promoting reggae music and you can’t fault them there. The songs are recorded in English and Croatian, and there are 12 on the disc, the last of which is just a dub remix of the second one, ‘Pokreni se’. About mixing languages on the album, they say it was impossible to release an album purely in English in Croatia, and that singing in (among others) the home language is also a way to bring this kind of music closer to the audience. Okay, all well and good, but as for the Jamaican on the album, it would be better, at least for now, to leave it to the folks from the Caribbean, or to someone who at least knows Patois English… as it is, the attempts at an authentic sound sadly come out a bit funny. The lyrics themselves don’t have the deep content you might expect from good roots (sadly the themes sometimes repeat too), and the melodies are kind of average. Add fairly static, repetitive melodies and it feels like there’s a slight shortage of ideas in the writing, the rhythm section holds the line but doesn’t really shine, the backing vocals just follow the singing dynamics without complementing them, the tempo changes aren’t exactly successful … So the opening track Crvena , Žuta, Zelena nicely lays out the ideology of the album and the band, which is good, since it’s their flagship promo horse, the one they shot a video for, but it’s neither strong nor incisive. The most danceable track on the disc is ‘Sun Is My Treasure’, which, ironically, is already closer to ska genre-wise. Guest MC Popaj joins in on ‘Stvarnost’ and is a pleasant addition, creating good synergy with the idea through his guest spot, but in general their music, just like their iconography, is built purely on reggae phrases and idioms of red-yellow-green, without too much instrumental know-how and skill.
In short, so it doesn’t all sound so black when it’s all so colorful… this otherwise solid release lacks strong vibrations and rhythm that would push you onto the dance floor, and maybe a slightly happier reggae sound that would put a smile on your face, but still, the record isn’t bad and, for a first album, ‘beyond criticism’. You can feel the group’s potential in the songs themselves, and let’s hope a long and fruitful musical road awaits them (though we expect a bit more maturity when they record the next album), but despite everything listed above, we can otherwise send them off with a clear conscience and a pat on the back. Big up ‘Brain Holidays’!
Lineup
Marcus G. – vocals, guitar
Tina – vocals
Vida – vocals
Radius Mandragora – tenor and alto sax
Vlado – trumpet
Topriva- trombone
Jura – organ and keys
Cipal – drums
Krešo Tomec – bass guitar
Production
R. Nappholtz, K. Tomec, Marcus G. and Mandragora
Tracklist
01. Crvena Zuta Zelena
02. Pokreni Se
03. Stvarnost (ft. MC Popaj)
04. Naddy War
05. Liars Hunting
06. Sun Is My Treasure
07. Maditation
08. The Only
09. Na Drugom Kraju Svijeta
10. Di End Of Suffaration
11. Summer Is Over
12. Pokreni Se (remix)
