VALINA
– a tempo ! a tempo !
(CD/2LP, Trost)
What is there I might say about Valina that I
haven’t said before? Please check the reviews to their earlier records, to
genius expansions like the enormous “Epode”-EP or even this or that single, and you can’t help but notice the
praise I have heaped upon them and you might wonder, if you want to read on
here at all, afraid it might be just another praising laudatory. And who
would want to read that? Yeah, I am mighty subjective and positive about
Valina, but then: I am completely subjective about music in all respects on
principle, because where would dogmatism or dichotomies bring you in
something so emotional as music, except in a dark corner where nobody likes
to dwell except the rules you have made up for yourself. On the other hand I
consider myself a friend of this band (no, definitely not in the
myspace-sense of the word, but in the real sense that meant something
serious some way some years past) so why should I be ashamed to like them
and say so? I am way too old to be ashamed of anything I do, by the way,
because I have grown my own set of principles and as long as I abide by my
own rules, I can never be wrong, or can’t I?
And Valina work on a similar set of principles, not so
much rules, more like guidelines, and those set a certain set of pathways
for them but never confine them from possible alternatives. Guidelines such
as being true to oneself, doing things you want to be proud of, doing them
well, without hurting anybody (if that is possible) and never to let oneself
be drowned in discussions. There are too many people out there who see
contributing to discussions as their sole purpose. Instead of constructing
something good, the best they will do is to hinder the progress of others,
in the worst case drag discussions out to an endless length and thereby
stopping all movement. Those are people who like to nitpick and make up
rules from out of nowhere. Who says, Valina may not use a trumpet all of a
sudden and who says it is not good style to start half of all songs with a
drum intro? Instead of letting go and then drench themselves in something
good, they might start to complain that the voice in some moments is to
nasal and that the sound of the snare drum is sometimes too sticky or sharp,
or some such nonsense. In the end, they mostly hurt themselves.
Of course, getting engineered by Steve Albini and
not(!) putting big stickers of the fact on the cover of their records –
that kind of modesty will be decoded as egoism or arrogance by some. Some,
who are usually assholes. Some will accuse the band of looking too good for
only drawing 200 people to a show at the Chelsea in Vienna, while others
will accuse them of being sell outs for playing in front of 1000 in other
places. Some will even name them arrogant elitists for staying out of the
local scenes and instead building a global network of friends. (Oh my, there
are so many people out there that would be better off if they locked
themselves in somewhere and never came out again.) But then again, I heard
the same things about The Smiths in the Eighties and then about Fugazi in the
Nineties and about a dozen times in between, and so I should have grown up
in the meantime and not care anymore. I dare to say that Valina don’t care
either way. They will do their thing and that’s it. And it is good that
way.
Because Valina are one of the best bands in Austria.
(Thank you, I had to say that. Because it is true and not review would be
complete without it.) They set an example both in terms of the music and in
the way they do the business side. Over the course of the last decade they
have built their own idiomatic musical language and they constantly expand
and reform it. Live they are impeccably sharp and in time, playing as
tightly as I ever heard a band from this country play (usually bands from
Austria are too lazy or too tired from complaining to play decent shows...)
and finally they have built up hitsongs that they may play at the end of
shows to make the crowd cheer. On record their striking features are in
sound and dynamics and in the structure of songs and melodies. They will
arrange little melodies, that may never leave your head, in a way that they
will surprise you when you hear them, no matter how many times you have
heard them. And all of this still as the basic three piece rock band outfit.
But that is just the rough outline. The structural core
of Valina is an idea of a band where the collective formed of mutual
interests and friendship stand out as the main feature. Which permeates into
the songs, where everything played contributes to the song rather than to
the player’s ego, and that does not only mean that there are no solos
(which there aren’t) but actually to a set of personal politics that
otherwise have destroyed many a band on the way. It is almost as if Valina
form a utopian social context as a band that is also an example for bigger
contexts. Like your family or your nation. This also means a special set of
guidelines concerning behaving towards people who might be friends,
supporters, fans, business partners in whatever sense, and make them all the
same. It is safe to say, that Valina don’t do a lot of marking steps
without thinking about them thoroughly yet at the same time without losing
intuition. They take their time and let things and songs come to fruit as
they need, not the record label or the audience wants it. In a time where
every annually new album by Madonna is heralded as a “comeback”, this is
another guideline that might be decoded as arrogance by those caught in the
traps of hypes and fads. Well, right here and now I don’t care anymore
about people too deep inside their own self-illusions to know better.
