Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Prismojeni profesorji bluesa
Label: Self-released
Release: 2018
Length: 55:07
Rating: 5/5
The third act of this one-of-a-kind phenomenon, if we count the live album »Live – Križanke«, could just as well have been called »Wacky Blues Scissors« instead of Wacky Blues Professors. They cut and slice their way relentlessly into spheres where you least expect them! They grab hold of the listener’s soul, take possession of it and lead it like true soul shepherds. In just a few years, entirely without meaning to or even knowing it, Prismojeni profesorji bluesa have been chiseling out a monument as the soul shepherds of today’s Slovenian blues rhetoric. And that’s in only three years of activity, which makes this already their third officially released document!
Given the brilliance of the debut »Family« and the somewhat headlong nature of the live document, which served up a pile of tracks in the style of unfinished jams, a mild skepticism started gnawing at the writer of these lines: had the guys perhaps fired off all their expressive rounds of musical vision right away? The answer is clear and loud (and musical): »No way!« The new album »Wacky Blues Professors« is a brilliant continuation of the band’s journey. Considering the hermetically concreted reach of Slovenian rock’n’roll, Prismojeni profesorji bluesa are, for many people, a story bordering on science fiction.
The intro grabs the listener, and the album doesn’t let go of its embrace for a full 55 minutes. From track to track, Prismojeni profesorji bluesa keep the listener right beside them in a state of intense tension. Whether it’s through astonishing playing, unbelievably cunning solutions in the bold arrangements of the compositions, or through vocal rhetoric that is truly lived through, they tap practically all four available voices (newly, Miha Ribarič also jumps in with a vocal part on the opening title track). The opener instantly exposes the band’s lucid side, with no shortage of sparkling cheekiness and self-irony, either! The funk-invasive Framed Love in the second half of the album (with Zlatko on vocals) could, judging by the nature of its arrangements, easily have swapped places with Wacky Blues Professors as the album opener, and it’s especially a treat for the hugely active and dynamic bass line of Miha Ribarič, which gives the track an incredible groove feel built from a weave of low tones.
Poorboy is »Julijan’s song« from head to toe. The Hendrix-flavored intro, backed by a wah-wah pedal, hints at it, while it holds on to some of the funky rhythmic kinetics of the album’s opening moment. Julijan has just the right genius tone for this kind of tune, one that sounds very natural, utterly unpretentious, and responds on a sensual level too. A track full of little ornamental tricks. All played without a pick. Julijan doesn’t once repeat the same two embellishments, which he artfully lays over the song’s motif, and then comes that middle section where he goes completely berserk on the guitar. Hendrix runs in his blood. Distant backing vocals add a gentle sheen of psychedelia to the track. And from the performance of this song alone it’s clear that PPB never play two songs the same way twice. Every rendition of a given track is a new story for them. A band you absolutely have to hear live.
Creepy is without a doubt the album’s absolute oddball. The guys brought cabaret into it: »The Boogeyman« Miha Erič steps onto the scene with an unbelievably entertaining vocal that borders on a narrator, grimacing without restraint and injecting a proper nightmare and horror flick into the essence of the song. This is the song where the man shows up on stage with a chainsaw and a butcher’s apron, certainly one of the funniest tracks Prismojeni prosorji bluesa have put together to date, and undoubtedly one that will go down as a live favorite. The modulation in the mid eight passage is a real treat, with even a moment of surf sneaking in for a crazily fun detour, and then PPB swing back onto the unhinged black horror polka blues, directed by the theatrical zaniness of Miha Erič’s genius vocal performance! A »black brother« of the song Ragin’ Mad from the debut »Family«, one that keeps plenty of the band’s wacky nature!
The infectious instrumental Vigilante offers some southern rock sentiment up front, but above all it’s a first-rate jam where every virtue of full-blooded instrumental feel and the quartet’s symbiosis shines in full light. Harmonica and guitar washing over each other, plus sharply penetrating, grooving rhythmic kinetics. Feel and awareness at every step of the playing! Voluminous and boundlessly piercing. Punchy blues rock turbulence that also evokes the old-school approach of the nascent hard rock pioneers of the second half of the sixties. The track was played »in one take« and suddenly »cut off« at the end, which means it’s an authentic sonic imprint of the band’s devilish jam.
Easy For You opens in the glow of a ballad-like blues lament, though it goes somewhere else as it unfolds. Zlatko Đogič remains incredible with his penetrating, emotionally lived-through delivery. Some of that black vocal charisma flows through the drummer’s veins. Miles away, sure, but still. A comparison to someone like Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railorad isn’t even that out of place anymore. The opening, middle and closing parts of the album belong to Zlatko. And so the album closes with the black blues hard rock heavyweight Deathproof, once again torn apart by all the unbridled emotions of Zlatko Đogič’s extraordinary vocal performance, and for the album’s big finale Julijan Erič delivers one more top-class solo masterpiece on guitar. An extraordinary final crescendo at the close of the album, the kind that makes you put the CD back in the player.
The Eričs skillfully open up space for each other. While one holds a motif, one of them breaks into a solo, then the cards get reshuffled and the roles swap. Bitchin’ N’ Cryin’ and Edd Genee (the latter again with some southern rock and surf aesthetic) are moments that show off this exceptionally harmonious mutual awareness between the two brothers, each in its own way, very vividly. If the former is imbued with constant solo escapades of harmonica and guitar, in Edd Genee the two instruments coexist much more concisely, yet in their interplay they still wonderfully »neutralize« each other, meaning they occasionally keep up a great expressive equality, too. The later tracks on the album, Take it Easy and Deep Cuts, bring a bit of a boogie moment to the band’s new work, which loosens up the album in a most welcome way.
»Family« was a sort of little lexicon of the band’s blues, an important work of affirmation. »Wacky Blues Professors« feels a touch more groovy and funky, and in its musical vision stylistically more focused and chiseled. Still, the album gives no sense that Prismojeni profesorji bluesa spend much time worrying about whether they’ve established a recognizable style or not. That kind of thinking could even kill the band entirely, since its character is built on four fully formed, freedom-loving essences of incredibly charismatic and penetrating individuals. Heart and complete authenticity are the key. That’s the essence. To be heartfelt is to be fearless and brave. And that heart keeps the band going. Where the heart is, there’s the essence, and where the heart is, there’s always the goal, even if the road there is thorny and uncertain. And in their craft, Prismojeni profesorji bluesa deal in an element that is becoming a huge rarity in the ever more calculated world of Slovenian rock and roll. They are what they are: what you see and hear is what you get. No »cosmetics« and no »frills«. It’s precisely this courage, with which they live their passions and emotions without brakes and approach everything they take on with great fire and a full-blooded, potent charge, that makes them so special, so strong and, finally, even if the guys won’t admit it, on the current map of the Slovenian rock scene also, in a way, dominant and authoritative right now. They appeared out of nowhere like a bolt from the blue, and soon after they were already filling Križanke, Kino Šiška and Cankarjev dom. And through it all, they still love coming back most to club spaces like Prulček. So can we even ask for more than the sincerity of these guys? They remain one big wacky family that will keep delighting us all with their music for a long, long time. Across generations and with no genre limits. Just with their heart and their seething fire! And yes. Through it all, they give the absolute impression of an international blues rock outfit that outgrew the confines of the current Slovenian rock scene long ago.
Lineup
Miha Erič – harmonica, lap steel guitar, vocals on tracks 3, 7 and 10
Julijan Erič – guitar, vocals on tracks 2, 6, 9 and 11
Miha Ribarič – bass guitar and vocals on track 1
Zlatko Đogić – drums, vocals on tracks 1, 5, 8 and 12
FAMILY ENSEMBLE:
Jasna Kmetec – saxophones
Andrej Tomazin – percussion
Domen Gracej – trumpet
Gal Gjurin – Hammond organ
Production
Prismojeni profesorji bluesa
Track list
1. Wacky Blues Professors
2. Poorboy
3. Creepy
4. Vigilante
5. Easy For You
6. Bitchin’ and Cryin’
7. Deep Cuts
8. Framed Love
9. Take It Easy
10. Edd Geene
11. I Need Love
12. Deathproof
