Author: Urban Bolta
Artist: Električni orgazam
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2010
Running time: 58:59
Rating: 4/5
At the turn of the seventies into the eighties, Belgrade was a major player in the development of the Yugoslav new wave and in laying the groundwork for the sound of the eighties in our dearly departed common homeland. Bands like Idoli, Šarlo Akrobata and Ekatarina Velika sprang up, and one of the leading acts of this singular movement was Električni Orgazam, the only Belgrade new wave heavyweight still going today. After years of promises about a new studio album, Orgazam finally returned to the big stage in 2010 with the comeback record “To što vidiš to i jeste”.
A big moment for the band came in the middle of the last decade, when original keyboardist Ljubimir Đukić came back from New York and, after twenty years, rejoined his old musical buddies. A tour of the countries of the former Yugoslavia followed (we caught them in Ljubljana too), they became the first Serbian band ever to open for the mighty Rolling Stones, and then Orgazam locked themselves in the studio and started honing their new musical adventures. Frontman Srđan Gojković Gile handed some of the songwriting duties over to Đukić, and together with guitarist Ljubomir Jovanović “Banana” the three of them form the brains of the outfit, the beating songwriting heart of the band. It’s in the context of these three old mates getting back together that “To što vidiš to i jeste” makes sense, since it offers a retrospective pull toward the band’s older direction and, with that, a departure from the sound of the last twenty years.
The keyboards have made a triumphant return to the Električni Orgazam sound, and they haven’t been such an important building block of the atmosphere since the album “Kako Bubanj Kaže” (1984), which is without a doubt Đukić’s doing. Bringing the keyboards back as one of the key instruments came at the expense of the guitar, which this time, compared to Električni Orgazam’s recent studio outings, gets less room to maneuver in shaping the sonic picture. The retro twist, or return to the roots, will please every follower of the new wave tradition, but it has to be stressed that with “To što vidiš to i jeste” Električni Orgazam are still far from ticking every box of the new wave movement. The ear-friendly, lighter pop-rock approach has pushed out a good chunk of the psychedelia and darkness, and the musical maturity of the band members has left its mark too, so the compositions are far more compact and thought-out than in the past. This isn’t a record you get on the first spin, since the listener only starts to untangle the somewhat more complicated rhetoric after several listens, which is definitely something new for this band.
The album opens with Nemaš nikom ništa da daš, a bouncy piano seducer with a playful funky rhythm section, and given how listenable the song is and how positive its attitude, it’s no wonder the band picked it as the album’s lead single. Next comes Noć me zove, a slow song with vocal harmonies in the chorus, a retro sound and a bluesy guitar solo, and the comparison with Benč’s September comes up all by itself. The tentacles of slow-paced music-making, which rarely break into harder rock’n’roll rhythms, stretch across the entire album and in places shamelessly flirt with elements of funk and soul. In Pokaži mi (kakav je tvoj grad), Banana’s harmonica joins the refined combination of keyboard and guitar sound and provides a welcome enrichment of the sonic picture. After a series of positive-minded songs, the twist comes with the longest composition on the album, Nikad ne znam, which surprises with psychedelic twists and proves that Električni Orgazam haven’t lost their feel for creating properly psychedelic moments in the almost forgotten eighties. The nearly eleven-minute piece is also a fitting sign that the musicians are no longer working on hit songs, as we were used to from their commercial era, and have instead surrendered to a free flow of musical ideas. The very length of the record vouches for that: with ten tracks it covers almost an hour of music, which is not a typical trait of radio-hit-friendly albums. Banana’s guitar and Đukić’s keyboards play an interwoven game the whole way through, and in Gdje god odem the bass guitar steps onto the front line for the only time on the album and firmly shapes the central motif of the song. The album closes with yet another atmospheric peak, the nearly eight-minute epic Da da da da, where experimentation and plenty of solo spots get the green light one last time.
For the band’s thirtieth anniversary, Električni Orgazam have given themselves and their many fans across the former Yugoslavia a new release worth sinning for. It’s worth noting that the mission to bring Električni Orgazam back across the whole common country is set up very thoroughly, since this is the first album in a long time to get distribution across the entire former shared territory. The album came out in Serbia months ago (where you can get it for pocket change, basically), while the Slovenian and Croatian editions have three extra (bonus) tracks tacked on. With “To što vidiš to i jeste”, Električni Orgazam have proven themselves a mature collective, and Đukić’s return has clearly done them good. They’ve successfully merged the rich legacy of new wave with more modern tendencies, although plenty of long-time fans will be only partly satisfied because of the easygoing soft rock sound.
Lineup
Ljubomir Đukić »Ljuba« – vocals, keyboards
Srđan Goković »Gile« – vocals, guitar
Branislav Petrović »Banana« – guitar, harmonica
Zoran Radomirović »Švaba« – bass guitar
Blagoje Nedeljković »Pače« – drums
Guests:
Dragomir Mihailović Gagi – guitar (5,6)
Vojislav Aralica – percussion
Production
Vojislav Aralica
Tracklist
1. Nemaš nikom ništa da daš
2. Noć me zove
3. Bliži suncu
4. Ti to možeš
5. Pokaži mi (kakav je tvoj grad)
6. Nikad ne znam
7. Vratim se
8. Mister ministar
9. Gde god odem
10. Da da da da
