Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Lolita
Label: ZARŠ Records
Released: 2014
Runtime: 62:32
Rating: 4/5
They say this is their 13th studio album in 27 years together (and the 28th year is already rolling). Not bad at all. Ladies and gentlemen, with all due respect! In front of us is the new studio album from the Slovenian experimental jazz outfit Lolita. The band has always been about effective musical provocation laced with a noticeable dose of eclectic flavor.
Lolita is still steered by two founding, original members: saxophonist Primož Simončič and bassist Iztok Vidmar. For the first part of its career the band mostly worked as a trio, but in recent years it has grown into a quintet. Along with that, the group’s musical vision has widened over the years, and its musical portfolio has kept changing. Right alongside the musicians maturing. Evolution is the only constant for Lolita. And the new album proves it. The new Lolita work in arrangements that are totally unbound and loosened up, so much so that the form is at times left entirely to spontaneous improvisation. The new album often feels like an imprint of a moment, one where a spontaneous spark of inspiration was coaxed out and transformed, whatever it is that leads an artist through the musical universe, into an audio recording on the studio’s tapes. Time and again the band “falls apart” inside an already built form and the music gets extremely fragmented and loose. Then the bits and pieces of all that information, from a free-spirited, confessional »scatteredness«, gradually pull together into a whole and take on a tangible, concise character again (our logical way of perceiving, which we mostly rely on when taking in music, reads this as a finished form of a musical phrase or motif).
The real puzzle of the new record was, above all, the new singer, Neža Trobec. The band put her vocal talents to use as an additional instrument. To strip things back further, add contrast and shake up the already soft foundations of free-spinning jazz forms that strive to explore unexplored musical dimensions. Neža only rarely sticks to classic vocal interpretation (singing with lyrics). Her approach is rather a total use of vocal characteristics as an instrument, and she pulls all sorts of tricks, twisting her vocal cords every which way. Completely spontaneous, with no particular master plan. In the spirit of free improvisation.
The album »Uantaunataunatanara« is definitely a new stylistic and sonic shift in the band’s career, one that sees them discovering new musical territory and widening their repertoire toward even more work with free-form jazz and even avant-garde music. The album will give any listener a serious bone to gnaw on, because it creeps under your skin very slowly. At the same time, it’s precisely this free-spirited exploration and stylistic open-mindedness, which Lolita has effectively fused with the legacy of their earlier work in these new times, that guarantees a successful transformation of their musical portfolio to a higher artistic level. It’s also a guarantee that you’ll be exploring the richly alluring musical information it offers for a long time, and the album will reward you generously in return.
Lineup
Primož Simončič – saxophone
Iztok Vidmar – bass guitar
Lado Jakša – saxophone, keyboards
Matjaž Sekne – violin
Uroš Srpčič – drums
Neža Trobec – vocals
Production
Lolita
Tracklist
1. Duhci (12:12)
2. Dnevna… (06:25)
3. …soba (09:43)
4. Uantauantauantanara (09:45)
5. Luna (07:36)
6. Saxafonia (02:03)
7. Pikalapokkala 08:37
8. Recesijskaa (00:00)
9. Devetka (05:21)
