THE STROY - GUEST REVIEW

Friday, June 23. After quite some time THE STROY finally performed at the Ljubljana Railway Museum. The announcement was looking promising, suggesting the impressive 15 tons heavy cistern-carriage, such an instrument you will most likely never hear anywhere else. At the same time they told us good news – their new album The Zone was out.

A huge crowd of people came to support the tribe, a large hall was three quarters full. The audience was expectative, concentrated, mindful and responded solidly during the concert. It seemed like they did not only come to see the spectacle; they came to check what The Stroy has to offer this time.

The urban tribe had in the last few years been through a silent, at first hardly noticable transformation – it shone marvellusly this Friday. The music machine has been running for almost a decade until now – and it had never run this smooth. As a matter of fact (we are getting to the point) it is a much larger deal than only the flawless running of the machine. What I have seen and heard on the stage this time, I have never ever seen or heard before. The premonition of it maybe, but I admit I would not think it can go this far.

What am I trying to say? I have always understood The Stroy's intial concept quite literally. As an imitation of the machine. As a sound research. As a collective subordination to God-machine, in a musical world equivalent to machine: loud and lucid, metallic and monotonous, harmonious and energetic. As, if you like, a simulation of the machine, performed by human bodies. The main task that tribe had to carry out to realize such concept were: on the musical level – the structure, on the sound level – the research of materials, on the level of performance – logistics and on the level of album production – mainly on how to transform the noise into electronic note, how to illustrate its power and dimensions it possesses live. Even though they and their producer Aldo Ivancic put enormous amount of effort into their firts two albums, the problem seemed unsolvable. Their success was far better on the second album Let's go than on the outcoming Ventilator, but The Stroy on the album just never was what The Stroy is, live.
Somewhere by the half of a ten-year journey, when the concept was threatened with a crucial collapse, the down-sizing had begun. Deconstruction so-to-speak, with their own terminology. The Stroy moved aside, towards unknown directions, and backwards as well. They began to form smaller casts, for smaller sceneries, for creation of scenic music or simply for researching. They started using regular instruments, human voice and other non-machine sounds differently, not subjected to ruthless rhythms of the machine as much, but in the way they were capable to express their nature. They had broaden the machine recruitment with unbelievable sonic spectrum, now not even closely being only percussion instruments, with noise and metallity as their main characteristics. Wind instruments sprung up, thrummies, grindies, bells; materials and their luring vibrations became softer and more flexible. NUTS were born, a smaller experimental cast of The Stroy, with a softer, even concealed sound – that has brought another fundamental nevelty: the odd rhythms.

Three years ago the renovated, prunned and experimental The Stroy performed on the radio show Izštekani. It was interesting and promising. To mention this once again – I did not expect I would hear what I have heard the last time at the Railway Museum. A germ has obviously infected the whole machine and The Stroy today is something completely different to what it used to be. It is as if their former stiff musical structure had been stolen by a body-snatcher. As if the replication was replaced by a living organism. In 2006 The Stroy is no longer a study of the machine, it is no subordination, paganism, nor the imitation of the machine. In 2006 The Stroy represents a triumph of the man above machine. It is a total and final victory. The Stroy grooves like never before. The stiff rhythmic structure was replaced by syncopes and odd rhythms. A human shout is no longer a collective mantra, a prayer to machine, instead it comes from human arteries and boiling blood. The sound supplies enormous span-width, even the softness, here and there, while it manages to keep its sharpness and force; the tribe have not given up on their old-time instruments. They made more space for a melody, created with selfmade wind instruments. The most exciting of all is the fact that their music is pervased with unbelieavble elasticity that breathes and pushes bodies into motion. The music, sound, everything The Stroy does today is no longer a relation between the man and machine. The Stroy today is a relation between the members of tribe. And what a tribe that is! The only thing left of the machine are the tools.

You can feel all this on their new album The Zone, a very well documented album, where you will find exact specification of all the instruments. It is also very fine-designed. Its photography is excellent. The outer image – cover made of steel, is not revolutionary but it is more than real. When you touch it, you say to yourself: this is it. Congratiolations. Highly recommended.