Lali Puna
Live, 14/09/2002

LA RECENSIONE

Zagreb, September 14, 2002.

"They told me there's live music at KSet tonight," she says, and so we set off, crossing Zagreb at night, and I mean, I'm not sure if you're familiar with capitals of that kind, with Austro-Hungarian style buildings and Slavic style people, with dark leather coats and fair complexions and sad looks, etc.: the evening promised; after all, everything had the right color on those nights.

When we arrive, the place is already full. KSet is very nice; it has the right size so that Bon Jovi doesn't play there but not even I by myself. And then, yes, KSet is reverberating with the right colors; after all, everything had the right color on those nights.

The strange guys on stage are still setting up their instruments. They have an air of knowing their stuff. They start, and they play excellent electronic music; both engaging and composed, well-written, it is greatly appreciated live. There it is, what we were missing was electronic... With her, I had discovered so much music: from the busker in Dublin to Mercury Rev (what better music for a fairy tale?), from Leut Magnetic (crossover from Split) to Lambchop (while sipping a 'white coffee' in a pub with colored walls; after all, everything had the right color on those nights).
And now electronic too. She looks at me: "Do you like it?".
"I do". The undulating bass notes among the bleeps are splendid, the lead singer's freezer voice is splendid. After the first piece she introduces herself: "We come from Germany, we are Lali Puna". Well, I know them, I've read about them, they're from the Notwist German crowd. Who would have expected it, without even knowing, in any venue in Zagreb, in front of not even three hundred people, on an ordinary Friday night, I run into Lali Puna. Magic.

While KSet's atmosphere is saturated by Nin-Com-Pop, I realize that their music is blue and icy, provocative and sweetly obsessive.
And she is next to me, she looks at me and she too is music: provocative and icy, sweetly obsessive and blue, like her eyes and like the soul of an elf. After all, everything had the right color on those nights.