MoonJune 2017
No Answer
Rhetorical questions posed by Serbian guitarist hang in the air to chime with no rhyme.
Those who follow this artist should know better than to ask him about anything and expect a clear reply: Dušan Jevtović’s work is so unpredictable that, more often than not, the axeman must surprise even himself with its outcome. And that’s how it goes on the musician’s third studio record. The album’s title track has been around for a while now – it was first preserved for posterity on the download-only "Live" – but here the perception of the number, that’s so elegantly pregnant with majestic anxiety and playful serenity, is quite different, as now the route there goes via “Yo Sin Mi” whose romantic ivories, gentle rimshots and romantic six-string sustain create an almost chamber, yet jazzy at heart, atmosphere.
It can be rather humorous like the “Prayer” blues, whose fuzzy strains hark back to "Am I Walking Wrong?" and further still, in retro fashion, show, yet tranquility outlined by Vasil Hadžimanov’s sensual piano and Asaf Sirkis’ cymbals in “Al Aire – Soko Bira” is crushed and confused under Dusan’s chthonic chords. Hefty, if iridescent, they take the entire ensemble towards insistent intensity, even more so when heavy riffs ruffle it all up, before muscular lyricism of “Frusci” channels a certain Chili Pepper’s fusion freedom while the splashes on a funky Fender Rhodes inform the flow with filigree detailing.
But whereas the patterns behind “El Oro” and “A Ver” are rather abstract, though collage-like alluring, and the sparsely textured “Lifetime” is elegantly introspective in its Balkan sadness, “The Place With A View” emerges as the most perfect image of a window and a vista which is being slowly revealed in the menacing, low-tone haze. Is there the answer in there? Quite possibly. Only suspense adds to the album’s appeal.
****1/5
