About
Once upon a time, there was a city called Denver, sitting at 1,600 meters above sea level, filled with a multitude of distinctive guitar sounds. Whether it is something in the air or the water, we do not know, but Denver gave rise to dozens of incredible bands and musicians who, in the 1990s, formed an underground scene widely known as the “Denver Sound.” From it emerged some of the most unique names in American alternative music, such as 16 Horsepower and Wovenhand, DeVotchKa, Lilium, Tarantella, The Czars… Among the members of the “Denver Sound,” repeatedly proclaimed the best live band in America, are the inimitable Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, whose country-punk-gospel-gothic “service” the Belgrade audience has had the honor of witnessing four times already. History has hidden various terrible things behind the words of “Amin” and other exclamations of gentleness and mercy. Their unveiling and bringing into the light of day is the specialty of Munly J. Munly. He is best known as that frontman of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club who is not mentioned in the band’s name. The one whose appearance makes you wonder whether he looks like the personification of death or a tormented saint. The one whose dance combines the mountain dance of his distant ancestors with the stage twitches of Ian Curtis. Such a “dance” permeates his entire creative output. Munly is a musician and writer devoted to the creation of worlds such as Lupercalia—a land without borders or ground, where the Puritanism of the first settlers intersects with the simplicity of “good country folk” and the blood sacrifices and bacchanals of ancient Rome. Twelve years after his debut “Petr & The Wulf,” we are given the first in a trilogy of albums about Lupercalia—“Kinnery of Lupercalia; Undelivered Legion.” It revives the hypnotic charge of Munly’s earlier work, combined with rhythms that will move both your feet and the depths of your dark, sinful human soul. They are difficult to compare to anything, but try to imagine that instead of gloomy Manchester, Joy Division formed in the depths of Appalachia, without electricity, equipped to interpret the world through ancestral myths, rituals, and animal (and perhaps not only animal?) bones and skins, aided by mysterious beings whose nature is unclear and whose intentions are even less so. Skillfully and frenetically picking his banjo, handling his voice from deep bass and chanting tones to haunted high registers, Munly seems to become possessed in an instant by all these spellbindingly terrifying stories. At the same time, together with his band, he creates a completely unique sound—a mixture of primitive American folk, complex tribal rhythms, and darkwave/post-punk intensity. Although you will hardly recognize them on stage behind their pagan masks, most of the Lupercalians are former members of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. Therefore, one could say that Munly and the Lupercalians are a more primal and darker iteration of the famous “Auto Club of haunted gothic country preachers.” To paraphrase another great poet among musicians: “You want it even darker?” Then come to KC Grad on Tuesday, November 24th. Tickets: 2000 RSD in advance until September 30th at Tickets.rs, Bilet.rs, Pub Brod, and Čumić Chillton. From October 1st: 2500 RSD. On the day of the concert: 3000 RSD.