Review Summary: One of the best prog albums made in the Eastern Europe in the 70’s. It’s probably even better than their debut.
“U Vreci Za Spavanje” is the second studio album of Tako and was released in 1980. The line up on the album is Miroslav Dukic, Djordje Ilijin, Dusan Cucuz and Slobodan Felekatovic.
Tako was a Yugoslavian progressive rock band formed in 1974, in the days when Yugoslavia was a Communist country. Despite the clear differences between Yugoslavia and the other European Eastern Countries, they always pretended to be more open and democratic to promote and encourage West World to expand its economy via a growing tourist industry. There was a side effect that leaded to a proliferation in music and in the arts in general. But, naturally, it was essentially bands that we can call “safe” that made it. Still, there are some exceptions such as the prog band Tako.
The story of Tako began when the first line up of the band Opus broken up. Bassist Dusan Cucuz and multi-instrumentalist Djordje Ilijin invited guitarist Sava Bojic and drummer Milan Lolic. In 1975, they had the opportunity to share the stage with a lot of famous bands of Belgrade. In 1976 the guitarist and the drummer left the band. A new guitarist Miroslav Dukic and a new drummer Slobodan Felekatovic joined the band. At the Belgrade Summer Festival, Tako played in front of an audience of 100,000 people at an open-air concert with other local bands. This brought them to record their eponymous debut in 1978. In 1980, Tako recorded a second album, “U Vreci Za Spavanje”. But, those were times of punk and both albums went unnoticed. After a proposal of reissue both albums, the band got the first master tapes, they already had the second, Rock Symphony, a Brazilian record prog label, reissued the albums in 1997.
Their second and final album is a step up from their debut. They’ve changed their music to a more spacey style with Pink Floyd and Eloy coming to my mind quite often. Unlike their debut that has some vocals in their native language, this is an instrumental album. It’s almost a perfect example of one of my personal favorite styles of prog rock. It’s quite simply instrumental prog rock, but heavy on melody and tricky compositions. Each individual track can be appreciated entirely on its own, without having to worry about its sequence on the album. The guitarist plays in a decidedly rough manner, a type of psychedelic hard rock sound. The keyboards are vintage, a sound that one expects to hear for the style. The fact that Tako keeps the album interesting in every minute is a testament to how strong they were as a unit.
The overall sound of the album is centered on a synthesizer played by a character named Djordje Ilijin. Miroslav Dukic’s electric guitars play behind him and play quite symphonic music, sometimes with a hard rock, perhaps because of the solos of roaring synths and electric guitars, and sometimes with the smell of a certain pomp rock. But, like the so called second class symphonic prog bands, they never sound like a consistent hum or keyboard. The performance of these four members is very stable overall, and the performance of each member can be also considered to be quite good.
The title track opens with elegiac synth pads in the tradition of Pink Floyd, with the brilliant harmony of the synth sound and the flute. “Senke Proslosti” has a heavy bass performance. I really dig the heavy guitar riff with the spacy synth in the backdrop. “Na Putu Ka Sebi” also starts similar as the previous track. It’s another fusion-style composition with nice solo parts of guitar, piano and synths. In the balladesque “Horde Mira”, slightly pearling piano sounds enhance the wide-walled symphonic rock practiced here. With the following lengthy “Price O Leni” the mix of majestic keyboards and razor-sharp guitar riffs is taken to extremes. Unleashed power riffs and elegantly transfigured key aesthetics leave a lasting impression here and can set every bombastic friend in ecstasy. “Dolina Leptira” is a beautiful track with a nice guitar melody, majestic riffs, synth jamming and a piano solo in odd time signature. “Izgubljeno Nista” is a bonus track. That is led by guitar from the get go. It alternates between the fast heavy passages and the spacey parts. “Igra Devojcice”, is a short track in the usual change of powerful pomp and dreamy romance. It closes the album pleasantly.
Conclusion: With their second and last album, Tako was able to perfect their style of spherical prog rock and offered purely instrumental compositions, which graze in an elaborate sound. I have listened before some works of several Eastern European bloc groups, but I haven’t heard anything comparable to their works, really. It’s obvious that this is a very good work, compared to any Western European works. The album has a perfectional feel and its space is more spacey than their debut album, released in 1978. It’s a dramatic dismal symphonic rock that at some times, despite the differences, reminds me the French symphonic prog band Angel. The song is filled with a variety of colors. It’s highly recommended for those who are looking for more things from the psychedelic prog with an interesting twist coming from a rather exotic corner of the globe. Unluckily, this is another album unnoticed in the West due to the Cold War.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
