Kimatika by Etceteral

An irresistible splurge of sax, krautrock grooves and heavy modular doom that should excite fans of Bent Arcana, Holden/Zimpel and The Comet is Coming.” -- Uncut

"Blend of disobedient free jazz with krautrock" -- Louder Than War

Kimatika, the 3rd album by the Slovenian audio-visual trio Etceteral, is a visceral plunge into the raw undercurrents of futuristic jazz, motoric propulsion, free improv and elastic compositions.

A growling baritone sax weaves through pulsating electronics and restless drums; the bass frequencies dense and cavernous. It is an arresting and thick tapestry of texture and tension, where noise and polyrhythms collide with urgent, melodic riffs.
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You’ve been around the block a bit, but not much gets you excited these days. There’s the dusty box of Warp’s finest up in the loft, and the free jazz CDs you’ve accumulated in your middle years standing idle in the kitchen, so where is it all going? The good times seem to be receding further into the past with nothing new to replace them. So far, so 2020s. Sometimes, oftentimes, you prefer silence. Perhaps now’s the time to take that long-promised trip to Slovenia. Green, peaceful (but occasionally combative), and home to one of Europe’s most intriguing musical experiments.

Over the last half-decade, Etceteral (Boštjan Simon on baritone sax and electronics, Marek Fakuč on drums, Lina Rica on visuals) have been busy staking out a space that lies somewhat on the edge of Slovenia’s prevailing musical landscape. Jazz for the jazz heads, sure, and more than enough for lovers of baritone sax groove, but listeners whose interests run primarily to the electronic will immediately recognise one of theirs. Like tak:til’s other Slovenian act, they move easily between composition, improvisation and in-studio interaction; unlike Širom, they are a strongly urban proposition, their clatter and ring the sound of traffic, space travel and the last thing you hear on a bleary Sunday morning in Berlin. Not for them the analogue purism of the country’s legions of jazz musicians either. Etceteral are very much their own thing.

Rhizome, the band’s second album (and first for tak:til), was released in late 2022 – and hit hard. A tour de force of futuristic jazz, motoric propulsion, free improv and (frankly) techno, it starts by placing Boštjan’s sax to the fore, all melody but with clear nods to Sun Ra’s cosmic preoccupations (most notably in the aptly named “Uy Scuti Space”), veers into more recognisable European jazz territory with “Brasshopper”, which showcases the band’s enduring mastery of pace and colour, then sets the whole thing alight with “Rome Burns”, a track of such pure techno energy that it suddenly vaults the whole enterprise somewhere else. If you didn’t get the memo about this superb record (2022 was a busy year after all), contact the Glitterbeat office. They will be glad to set you right.

It might have acted as the template for the new one, but you get the impression that Etceteral aren’t much interested in templates. Kimatika continues the quest upwards, but, as Boštjan points out, “the main focus this time [was] on composition, not so much on improvising and interaction. The pieces feature a lot of rhythm machines and prerecorded sequences, that we play with and against. The sax, foggy sometimes, like a vocal on some shoegaze records, was a choice in the mix.” For sure, the sax emerges rather than leads on much of the record, further loosening the ties that bind the band to jazz, although the writing process still involved staking out the ground by “trying to find workable riffs using drums and sax only.” After that the band built a structure around those riffs before recording live in a real studio for the first time.

The emphasis on composition rather than improvisation (“Me and Marek were less free to meander around”, as Boštjan winningly puts it) has yielded a record with even more layers and textures than Rhizome, but one on which clarity is not sacrificed for a moment. This ability to create immediacy from complexity is perhaps what sets Etceteral apart from their like-minded peers, aided by production work that remains as clear-sighted as it was on the previous record. But there’s another, more crucial factor at work here: the band’s determination to make something that is as fun to listen to as it obviously was to make. There’s a hilarity that runs through it from the off, with the electro squelch of opener “Ljolo” suggestive of a 70s US cop show (the 2070s, that is), and continuing with “Questions”, where Bostjan’s widescreen jazz talents make their first appearance, albeit buried slightly deeper than previously.

The first handful of tracks are urgent, frenetic even, but never too much, and as the landscapes widen, giving visual artist and crucial third member Lina more than enough to work with, the record loosens up. Hilarity intact, it lands for four glorious minutes at “Prepih”, Etceteral’s new seminal track, which introduces the funk that converses with Warpian bleep for the rest of the record. By the time album closer “Kaneda” comes around, you’ll be up and dancing; then you’ll flip it over and start again, to find out precisely how they’ve managed to pull off another great album so recognisably them yet so radically different.

Unless you’re lucky enough to catch them in Ljubljana or perhaps Berlin, in full effect with Lina’s visuals and a frankly astonishing drummer who’s even better live than he is on tape, this record is your best bet. But you could just hop on a plane and find out why this tiny country keeps producing underground sounds that are the equal of any on the planet. It’s time to make new memories, and leave the past where it belongs.

Boštjan Simon, baritone sax
Marek Fakuč, drums
Lina Rica, visuals