Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Artist: Various Artists
Label: 57 Records
Release: 2005
Southern Styria. The Croatian border is just a stone’s throw away. Obsotelje is full of villages in the process of dying out. People are leaving the area. The young head off to school, their parents to jobs. Farming was once, long ago, the primary source of income, and now there’s less and less of that too. Birth rates are falling anyway. Social security and guaranteed jobs are getting scarcer by the day. Apathy sets in, along with the post-industrial collapse of the basic pillars of stability. Vision is in short supply. We’re all mechanical appendages of something we, at least indirectly, helped create ourselves. No bright prospects in sight. Even if you love the place you come from, you somehow can’t become a full part of it, because you’d slide into despair. The young are the main driving force of a world that has stalled here at a crossroads between a painful past, full of bitter memories, and a future that doesn’t hand over a single gram of hope on a plate. Obsotelje isn’t exactly a place that brings rock action or liveliness straight to mind, and yet with Urok we got a wake-up call that, despite the area’s lack of prospects and a healthy dose of depressing hopelessness, there’s a pretty lively scene at home. The glimpse into it is served up straight and with no compromises. Part of the light in the grey of everyday life was Klub Metulj, which was the wake-up call and main engine of the music scene. Bistrica ob Sotli got a shot of dynamics, and over time, surely and inevitably, the stasis could turn into motion. Part of that chronological cross-section is also a trip along the timeline between 1998 and 2004, meaningfully named Urok, featuring bands like Zmajev rep, Malik, Eternia and NoCenzura. What’s come out is a lasting document of creative fever, escapism and the final breaking of silence and stillness.
The first piece of the collage in this fragment of the southern Obsotelje landscape is the young band Malik. The quartet consists, or at least back then consisted, of vocalist Simon Černelč and his brother, guitarist Andrej Černelč, plus the other half, the rhythm duo of bassist Jošt and drummer Vid Drašler. Prapodobe is pure Alice In Chains on first listen, in all its meditative fullness – with a female vocal added by Nataša Pukšič. At least that’s my reading of what’s impossible to miss. First chord in and it’s clear: the nineties built a pretty hefty following even down in Slovenia’s godforsaken south. Malik fills the gap and plasters a pinch of philosophizing on the contours, about a God who’s in the process of dying off. The lack of positivity is distorted loud and impossible to miss, to the extreme. The first impression is a blend of AIC and Pearl Jam elements, the latter in the contours of the bass and guitar. The drums are meditative and the vocal is a whisper. The guys have caught some fairly mellow waves of unmissable blackness, meditative and ambitiously intellectualized in the lyrics. The song Onstran follows the same principle, as does the closer of the first quarter, Duh, which carries on down the path already laid out, one any lover of the Seattle sound would happily walk. Sadly, I get the feeling these moments can only be a pleasant memory of the sentimental haze of times gone by. The goalposts have moved on.
Guitars cut in hard, along with a ragged bass sound. The chain continues with Eternia. Andrej Černelč’s English vocals, with him picking up the guitar as well, are joined by Robert Augustinčič’s bass and the drumming of Friderik Bobnarič – Fridžo. As befits a relatively small place, the trio shared their musical experience with a couple of guests too – violinist Polona Žalec and the aforementioned Jošt Drašler, who this time hit the piano keys. Any Way carries on with a similar feel, only in English. Krog opens up the registers of high-ringing melodies a bit, which still don’t sound as convincing in Slovenian as they do on Malik’s opener, but they’re a lot sunnier and brighter. The guitar gem of the opening intro to Belief confirms it, though it sounds pretty forced amid the undulation of broken rhythms, accelerations and the almost forced dryness of the instrumental that follows. With a better, more generously funded production and more polished pronunciation of the broken English, it would go down even easier, because the guys have brilliant inserts and ideas that develop unexpectedly all the way to the end.
Time to catch up with Zmajev rep, which is once again made up of the Drašler brothers (bassist and backing vocalist Jošt backed by the rhythm-section foundation of his brother Vid’s drumming), the guitar bits of Andrej Boštjančič – Ruda and the vocal-and-keyboard coloring of Ambrož Božiček, serving up three originals. Strela flirts with elements of funk on top of everything else. And again, distorted ramblings of carefully measured artiness. The rather hallucinatory mood is broken up by breaks and playing around with structures on the edge of musical prog. Raw and unfinished, sadly. Acceptable as a demo for an audition to open for someone like Mr. Bungle. Gospodov dan shows the guys are quite at home in ballad-style openings too, but those blow off the dust of what follows too fast. And then Bagdad. Mania. Regret over a love that’s gone. Half-baked metaphors and outlines of sarcastic criticism. The first break from the grunge sentiment is here, a blend of funk and progressive Yugo rock rhythms. What lingers in the ears is a happy mix of raw sailing between the Scylla of funkadelic psychosis and the Charybdis of the total nullification of nihilistic idol-smashing. Black and white are bound together here with blood, hinting at musical chops and playfulness.
And just like that they saw it through to the end. To the final act, which goes by the name NoCenzura. This time we get completely new names. Damjan Dobrina – Baček kicks off the guitar experiment, Uroš Šket joins in on bass, and this time Luka Dragovan breaks the sticks on drums. Andrej Černelč – Smejči lends his vocal cords for backing vocals. Limited Edition Of Love is quite… Above all, props to the youngsters for reaching for seventies-style soloing, which sadly could use a shade more of the sound of some Hammonds. The rocker intro develops into a fairly entertaining two-dimensional, stereotypical attempt to transcend something that isn’t even worth transcending. It’s just fun, right? And that’s why the ending is lovely and erotic. St. Dual is a sensual ballad. The whole thing is stunk up, sadly, by the ugly English pronunciation, Slovenian-style. The second half of the song is a big surprise, sliding into something completely different – nu-metal rapping and the condensing of revolt into a bitter drop of sour piss, which goes by the name of everyday, almost urban Obsotelje life. The song Bos is a declaration of youthful freedom to say no, I don’t want this and I won’t! Middle fingers up in the air. The system is rotten, but hope is what dies last. It lives to the last chord. There will be no surrender.
The collage is glued together into a whole. What has come out is very ambitious and raw. It promises a lot, but it could use a bit more fabric softener and some warmer pastel colors. There’s an element of subversiveness to it. Beneath the surface, creative currents smolder, and the flames of a real alternative to what’s visible to the eye and right there in front of you. An alternative to what’s socially acceptable and is the main engine of the mainstream. The measure is fourfold, and it serves up a mix, a cocktail of grey and the red blood-thirst of essential rebellion. It’s an escape into music. The language is universal and it enchants. The spell and the resolute no to stasis have been spoken, plain to see. A sequence of moments from a claustrophobic environment full of restrictions imposed by that very environment. It’s full of mental barriers that can now be overcome. Partly they were. Besides geographic and demographic similarities, all four bands share one more thing: a passion for creating and musical enthusiasm. And with Urok, Slovenia has gained at least a new epicenter of creativity – Bistrica ob Sotli. One more place has been added to the map, where we can stick four new colored pins and hope for another dose or two of original songs. This time they offer a glimpse into the evolution of a handful of individuals. If I may be bold and add a metaphor that just popped into my head, small places have one common denominator, which isn’t even such an incredible phenomenon: the incestuous coexistence of a few creation-hungry musicians who form the monadic cores of a few bands. It’s really about cyclicality and experimenting with mutual chemistry. Simultaneously or in succession. Everyone brings something of their own. Some little piece of colored amber or opal, which they string onto common threads. The shades are similar, but it’s always something unique. All that matters is development, musical too, and evolution can take strange paths. What the next step will be this time only time can reveal, plus a pinch of more aggressive marketing of musical treasures, right? Definitely a very digestible product that goes down easy even after a couple of listens.
Lineup
MALIK are:
Simon Černelč – vocals
Andrej Černelč – guitar, backing vocals
Jošt Drašler – bass guitar, backing vocals
Vid Drašler – drums
ETERNIA are:
Andrej Černelč – vocals, guitars
Robert Augustinčič – bass guitar
Friderik Bobnarič-Fridžo – drums
ZMAJEV REP are:
Ambrož Božiček – vocals, keyboards
Andrej Boštjančič-Ruda – guitar
Jošt Drašler – bass guitar, backing vocals
Vid Drašler – drums
NoCENZURA are:
Simon Černelč – vocals
Andrej Černelč – guitar, backing vocals
Jošt Drašler – bass guitar, backing vocals
Vid Drašler – drums
Production
Aldo Ivančič with the individual artists
Track list
MALIK
1. Prapodobe
2. Malik
3. Onstran
4. Duh
ETERNIA
5. Any Way
6. Krog
7. Belief
ZMAJEV REP
8. Strela
9. Gospodov Dan
10. Bagdad
NoCENZURA
11. Limited Edition Of Love
12. St. Dual
13. Bos
ALBUM LENGTH: 52:19
