Sur (2)

The project SUR as a live band and a creative group has been discontinued. Currently it is only used as a "platform" for its founder to keep releasing the soundtracks still written and recorded for theatre performances under this name. The group SUR started to take shape in the end of 2001 when its founder was writing music for the dance theatre performance Lust by Sebastjan Starič. At first this was exclusively a studio project with a couple of full members and several guest musicians. The material was recorded in their home studio and in May 2004 they self-published their first album, 'Na jug' ('Southbound'). In 2005 the group started working on their second album, entitled 'Druga stran' ('Second Side'), which was released in July 2007. After their first album was released, the permanent members of the group adapted a part of the material for live performances and performed at a few concerts; however, this has not become their main focus, mostly because of impossible logistics and work on other projects. So the group is still mostly involved in studio work, writing original music and arrangements. Until today, SUR has signed soundtracks for twelve theatre performances (2002 - Sebastjan Starič: Lust; 2003 - Borut Bučinel: Who Draws Me; 2003 - Branko Potočan: On Our Own Land; 2003 - Nick Pickard & Gareth Boylan: Monolads; 2004 - Boris Kobal: The House of Bernarda Alba; 2004 - Sebastjan Starič: Pepperoncino; 2005 - Tomaž Štrucl: Che Guevara; 2006 - Dušan Teropšič: Dimwits; 2008 - Jure Rudolf: Where Do You Live?; 2008 - Dušan Teropšič: An Event in the City; 2008 - Borut Bučinel: Lullaby of Death); 2010 - Dušan Teropšič: The Upsidedown World); 2010 - Borut Bučinel: Shining);and a short film (2003 - Marko Horvat: Happiness on Sale). Recently the SUR collective has published the new collection of tunes for theatre, poetically entitled 'Soundtracks Vol. 5', featuring the original music written for theatre performances in 2009 and 2010. Slovenian press imaginatively characterised the music of SUR as "ambiental-rock-jazz-electronica". This may even be mostly true of the first record, though the members of SUR like to call themselves "alternative ambient anarchistic hippie progressive psychedelic metal-munching jazzy trip hoppy funky beer drinkers and spritzer aficionadoes"... The full-time members of SUR were: Neža Trobec Teropšič – vocals, Monika Fritz – backing vocals and lyrics, Jure Praper – guitar, Aljaž Tulimirović – guitar, Samo Pečar – bass and Borut Praper – drums, keyboards, programming, lyrics. Guest musicians and contributors on the first two albums and frequent collaborators in the other projects of the SUR collective included: Marko Djukić (lyrics, vocals), Rok Predin (lyrics, vocals, acoustic guitar), Dušan Rebolj (lyrics, vocals, acoustic guitar), Matevž Šalehar (vocals), Vasko Atanasovski (saxophone, flute), Stojan Kralj (bass, fretless bass, guitar), Andrej Hrvatin (percussion), Janez Vouk (trumpet), Marko Zorec (guitar), Jelena Ždrale (violin, viola), Nino de Gleria (cello) and Tomaž Štrucl (vocals and beer-side battle plans). The name SUR may mean many things, but the members like to tell people it is actually an acronym for "samostalna ugostiteljska radnja" – "independent catering service"... Which is also the name of the studio where the group ponders its masterpieces.