x x x
I went to see Mika Male play at Spunk on Saturday, June 22nd 2013.
I have listened to them already before, last time being on ALU Cash&Carry day (Academy of Fine Arts open doors day) in May and it was very nice and I enjoyed their music but still I didn't like the very idea of hearing them in the daylight, in the afternoon shade and as a side show to Art exhibition, displaying music like craft - not that it wasn't great (because it was!) but because this felt inappropriate to ME - that whole assembly carried just too much normalcy and usualness and this are not adjectives I commonly associate with work of Mika Male.
Sometimes the music is not only music.
Harrison Wintergreen, Friedrich Nietzche, Sosuke Aizen, James Sidas - they all have something in common and I feel that I also participate in that something. I feel their soul-search and their imminent conclusions as my own. On the scale of life inevitability they have reached the furthermost step, the highest point of ability and excellence - and they just kept on going toward more, the invisible, the unfathomable, in the process of losing by winning.
One step back on that perilous ladder there is Samuel Vimes and he seems to have managed not to overstep. His knurd, property that they all share, is somehow - only just - big enough to bring him to higher most step but to somehow keep him still capable of social contact. That awe inspiring, precious spot, Sam Vimes in my mind shares with Mika Male Narrator*.
Mika Male make music so beautiful it really qualifies as music only to most simple layman. It is so rich, so simple in its complexity, so full of organic sound it really is more vision than sound. Picture, rather than musical composition. Listening to studio produced pieces with sounds of instruments interwoven with raindrops sounds and fragments of stories is just complete bliss. So that is why I wanted to hear them again, at night and in closed space, as main event, center stage.
So I went to see them play in Spunk.
But they did not really play in Spunk. As I got there I saw their gear already set in Prostor Do. I inquired on what brought on the change ("But sound is so much better in Spunk!!" ) and was explained that Spunk was too constrictive space for the band. I was already ready for everything after that explanation and few minutes later it was time to see if expectations match to reality.
They didn't match. The sound was great.
It was just beautiful. Orlan's wonderful voice. Dancing violinist. Passionate bass. Support guitar coming and going off stage. Exquisite jazzy drums, temperate and with brushes. Getting up and sitting down, going around picking up other instruments. Cooking with fire.
I loved how at one moment Orlan, in the middle of the song, said: "I don't hear keyboard." and he just got up and walked back to the mixer and adjusted the tone while music paused and audience cheered him on and clapped. And later on we could really hear the difference and it was better.
I love how he laughed to himself performing one of two new songs as he (seems to have) forgotten the lyrics for a moment.
I love how the music was so captivating I could not tell how long they were playing at all. I love how they played Nisam te pustio na vrijeme in the beginning of their set so the sadness will be already forgotten by the end. I loved Već smo bili ovdje as it rang in my soul pulling my hurt chords. I love how my friend that was out on a gig with me for the first time turned back to me in the middle of the set and told me: "I'm definitely coming along for more gigs!"
And it ended, beautifully and organically, just as it started - appearing and dissolving like a mirage it is - and later we stayed there, sitting on the terrace in the cool breeze after a hot summer day.
And I even got memento of the evening:
I loved how energetic the words "u ovih 14 katova smo sami" (in these 14 floors we're alone) sounded in Večeras smo sami that they performed for an encore.
x x x
Sometimes the music is not only music. Sometimes the music is no music at all.
Just the void in my heart ringing with emptiness.
x x x
* - "Mika Make Narrator" I consider the person sharing his stories through song lyrics. This does not have to be the lyricist, but I have not got enough information to confirm nor deny that this is the case. Instead, I'd rather hypothesize that Narrator persona contains described characteristics, and that actual lyricist can still be more rounded up, complete person, that can still be to a fairly high degree different from description above.
No comments:
Post a Comment