• dark pop
• Electronica
• Slovenia
• Torul

Published on 22/11/2022 11:00 am

There will be precious few strings this week. Rather, we will celebrate the 100^th episode of Balkan Express by taking a dive into electronica and dark pop, courtesy of Slovenian band Torul. They are a three-member act who have been around for at least two decades, by some counts, much longer than that.

Torul are the brainchild of a Slovenian artist and DJ who goes by the name of Torul Torulsson. One of the pioneers of Slovenian electronic music in Slovenia, Torulsson has been active since the mid-nineties. Back then, it was all about minimal, techno-house and various other genres that shaped electro music of the era.

Making albums

By the turn of the millennium, Torul Torulsson started adding vocals to his increasingly wide range of production. His first album, Dark Matters, was entirely his own production, with added vocals Mitja Šedlbauer. The album got a largely positive reception and this ultimately led to formation of a three-piece band.

That said, it was a long way from making music to producing an album. The artist released a huge number of singles beforehand, but the  debut album Dark Matter was released only in 2010, around fifteen years after Torulsson did his first live act.

Since 2010, however, Torul have become almost hyper-producitve. They have released five albums in last six years, each with successful singles that topped charts across Europe and accompanied by music videos. They have been touring mostly in clubs and festivals around Europe, having appeared on stages in UK, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, France, Poland, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria.

Relentless pace of production

The pace of production Torul have taken up is almost relentless. At first, they released a new album almost every year. Lately, this has slowed down a bit, to a more record-company-friendly clip of a new title every three years. Overall, they have amassed a respectable seven albums over the last twelve years.

Torul’s seventh album is a sort of a recap of the last decade of their work. But is also more than that. Teniversia, released in 2020, is a re-imagining of Tourl’s past work. Twenty tunes were arranged completely anew, taking a fresh look at Torul’s last decade.

And that is all the time we have for today. Check out Torul on YouTube, Spotify and wherever you get your music from. Balkan Express will be back next week.

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Balkan Express takes weekly trips into contemporary musical production of, you guessed it, the Balkans. Forget gusle and tamburice, this show is about rock, pop and a sense of humour. Well, at least there’s guitars. On air most Tuesdays in a new-and-improved time-slot at 1100 hrs. Usually. Your train conductor is Aljaž (aka @pengovsky) who once did the world a solid and decided never to sing again in public. Which is why he ended up doing radio.