(Reggae magazine “SE LA” № 14 august 2000)

 

The first minutes of listening convince that music of group again became transparent, harmoniously laconic and in original sense of a word reggae something similar - so minor and up to a limit slow can be found out only in early albums UB-40. Or at other representatives "white" reggae groups SUPER-MAX. As if to verbal filling the musical space which are lit up by the SKOLNOE SOLNCE to compare here. Perhaps, there is nothing. Texts of songs Sledge only in part correspond to traditional reggae-subjects (about Jesus Christ, for example, on Jamaica to sing somehow it is not accepted, there mainly Jah or ganja eulogize). But they ideally reflect the maintenance of eternal and inescapable dreams of the inhabitant of snow-covered Russia- far and tropical countries. So about what these songs what make a new album of the Shkolnoe Solnce?

The first on the cartridge "Sentiabr" - the lyrical and sad story about left love after summer sounds.

 

The wet moon shines asphalt,

In pools being broken into thousand sparks.

Sideways the road has lantern

Also shines the passer - by downwards.

 

Streets have stiffened pending dream.

Somewhere the violin in the distance cries.

Only you are now necessary for me.

Though it also is told shaky.

But - September, has again come September..

 

However, sad on left - empty business. "Leto Pridet", - asserts Sunjah the name another songs. Also opens to us the plans for a warm season:

 

And summer will come, summer will come,

And we with you reggae shall dance.

You will dress on the dress in a floret,

And I shall observe, How you dance reggae...

 

But hardly it will be possible to the musician and us to be overlooked in "Pechalniy Tanec". You see Babylon still holds us in the ferro-concrete embraces. Everything, that remains to us, is an eternal work and an opportunity rare minutes of rest to listen, as the Bean of the Gauze sings about magic Jamaica. In two following compositions "Plach Ieremii" and "Ierusalim" the rhythm becomes complicated, arrangements too vary, forcing something disturbing and frightening to penetrate into soul of students. Even an appeal happines concerning uprising from ashes of Jerusalem sound somehow ominously. Whether not therefore there is in an album a song - pray "Gospodi ne Pokiday Menia"?

 

I feel, that you somewhere beside-

In air, in the sky, in the sky, in heart mine.

You are eternal, you are right, you that is necessary,

And I ask you only about one: Be with me...

 

Closer to the ending of an album the pressure falls down, and the song "Kongo" carries away us far - is far from Russia, immersing in the world of the African exotic:

 

We are floating on a watercourse,

On a watercourse of Congo.

Behind a board of a canoe crocodiles search for food,

Behind a board of a canoe swimig fishes.

Mighty jungle are floating behind a board.

Sparks play a falls of water,

 

Romantic travel to dream - that remained to those who already begins to be mad in this severe and uncomfortable world. Development of this idea, apparently, should take place in the following composition under name "Caribi". But as this thing on advertising a picture of travel companies in lustrous motley magazines is not similar! That we hear at the SHKOLNOE SOLNCE, is, faster, courageous rhythmic experiment, worthy, perhaps, only Ziggy Mar ley and The Melody Makers. Bravo, Sunjah ! You the present musician !

 

Finishes an album eternal how the world, the question, on which else to nobody was possible to give the intelligible and settling answer - "Kuda Uhodit Detstvo ? ". Spatial movings here give up the place to movings of time character Sunjah invites us in the past, in which:

 

It is possible to play snowball,

It is possible to be rolled on a ski,

It is possible to go with friends

On fishing and in a wood.

And when you come home,

Houses always so are glad to you,

And you may fall asleep quietly

You see tomorrow since morning on work it is not necessary.

 

The new album Sledge leaves the most pleasant feelings. It is visible, that "Pechalniy Tanec" is a result of serious creative work and new sense made earlier. The minimum traditional tooling means which the group has, does not do an album monotonous, repeating former finds But the main thing that should please, it is return to reggae. the SHKOLNOE SOLNCE again go above us on the part of Jamaica and steadily aspires to zenith.

 

I-van Zemtsov.