Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Kavarna Sputnik / Slovenia
Concert date: 17.11.2016
Attendance: 80
Ticket price: 0,00€ (free entry!)
What happens when Croatian border officials turn you around because you can’t come up with the right ID documents, and send you back to Slovenia? Well, the fact that a Croatian border cop, even if only for three hours, “saved” his country and its citizens from an invasion by two “invasive Slovenes” was kind of a foregone conclusion. The RockLine duo didn’t lose much sleep over it. Sure, the trip to the »metal party« fell through, the one where Florida’s old-school death metal natives Obituary, Bay Area thrash veterans Exodus and the utterly fascinating, wonderfully weird metallers Prong, no less legendary, were tearing up the middle of Zagreb. But we’ve seen all three bands plenty of times, and another chance to catch their shows will come along soon enough. Story closed. Anyway, that Thursday, in the second third of November, there was lively gig action elsewhere too. In Graz, Austria, Scottish rock’n’roll legends Nazareth took the stage, in Ljubljana Queen fans relived their classics courtesy of the “imitators” The Bohemians, and the Ljubljana café Sputnik got a visit from the guitar wizard of the Barje marshes, Tilen Pusar. And not just for a coffee. And at the end of its epic odyssey, RockLine too finally dragged itself straight there, with no plans whatsoever.
Tilen Pusar is definitely a special musician. Worth every bit of attention. A man who has developed, over the years, a recognizable approach of his own to musical expression, he’s considered one of the most interesting guitarists around, and what’s really fascinating on top of all that is that Tilen Pusar is his own boss. He does everything himself. A true master of what you’d call “Do It Yourself” (D.I.Y. mag). An independent musical artist.
The years fly by, and there’s no need to point out that they pass in silence. Anyway, the master of instrumental guitar is back with a new studio album. His second. On 17.11.2016, his new album “New Life” officially came out, following his studio debut »Inner Strength« from 2012. As befits such a celebration and turning point in life, the man booked a gig at the Sputnik café, where he played the new record live for the first time.
A nice crowd of friends, acquaintances and supporters turned up. Close ones, distant ones. In short, an audience that’s friends with Tilen and backs him wholeheartedly. Over the years the man has played a heap of café gigs and even showed up at a battle of the bands. He built a name, built a reputation. That won him a solid base of followers who keep following and cheering him on. Why am I going on about this? Because rock gigs these days are mostly empty unless you’ve got “a name”. People would rather stay home with their smartphones and social networks, feeding their egos and soothing their craving for attention. Tilen worked hard so that his shows aren’t empty, and it felt great that the Sputnik venue was, as a result, buzzing.
In his usual style, Tilen quickly broke through that invisible barrier that always hangs between musician and audience before a show. He’s sparkling, cheeky, genuinely spontaneous and straight-up direct. With his wisecracks (Tilen can also blow a masterful little puff on the soul, so to speak) he keeps the audience motivated the whole way through, so that they stay focused, don’t start yawning, and a real party gradually develops in the room, which of course goes hand in hand with the original point of rock’n’roll.
The concert was split into two parts. The man kicked it off with two classics from his debut, Calling Her and Snowgirl, then moved on to the new material. Tilen had already played some of the new songs live, while others got their actual live premiere. Plugged into a combo amp with his white Fender Stratocaster, set to a pleasant semi-acoustic-to-acoustic jangle and often backed by a pronounced reverb effect, Tilen “caressed” the ears of everyone present with a string of instrumentals whose compositions revealed a sonic and performance-level inspiration drawn from the legacy of guitar masters like Mark Knopfler, J.J. Cale, Chris Rea, and Eric Clapton too. »Fingerstyle« technique, organic tones, and above all the passion and emotion (Tilen is an exceptional master of shaping struck notes – the same note can evoke a completely different emotion) that boiled over throughout the show. There was a slide too. In the utterly fascinating I’m Survivor. Actually the only song with distorted guitars, which Tilen introduced with the comment »This one’s gonna rock«. Quite likely it’s dedicated to adrenaline junkies.
Tilen Pusar keeps an incredible musical catchiness in his compact instrumentals. In that respect Tilen is a true perfectionist and aesthete. The lead motifs are subtly decorated with excellent, consistently inspired and intuitive soloing, as well as imaginative and witty harmonic embellishments. All of this, in both performance and sound, blends into a kind of musical cumulus of blues, rock’n’roll, Celtic folk and country.
In a nutshell: a gorgeous story of one-of-a-kind guitar rock, forged in Slovenia, directed by clearly perceptible expressive variations that give Pusar’s musical character a special place.
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