The Ljubljana based audio-visual duo balans, Kristin Čona and Andrej Pervanje, have been balancing their post-pop-punk sound since 2013. They complement their sympathetically whimsical musical expression with personal confessional lyrics and sharp whistling. The banality of their music is also connected with a strong visual component. In 2016 they started collaborating with a contemporary artist Alessandro Di Giampietro, who takes care of the entire band’s visual aesthetics with his unique artworks. Last year, with the desire to further enrich their live performances, drummer Jan Kmet joined them on stage.

In 2018, as part of the Radio Študent club marathon, the band played on most of the Slovenian stages. With their relaxed and authentic performance, they also impressed the audience abroad, touring from Vienna to Skopje. As this year’s “Ines talent” of the international network of showcase festivals Ines, they have already performed at several showcase festivals; MENT Ljubljana, Waves Vienna, and in November they will perform via stream at the digital edition of the Spanish MonkeyWeek. Their fifth album “a vam je jasno” (2019, ŠOP Records) was named the best album of 2019 on the international music platform Beehype. In recent years, balans has thus become one of the most prominent representatives of the domestic underground. In 2020 balans released their first studio album, an intricate collection of post-punk hymns titled “sam pravm”(Kapa Records, 2020). The release propelled them to the top of the local and regional Balkan alternative music scene, with flattering reviews from the local, as well as international media. The band also got included in the “100 Artists To Watch 2021” list by Impala music.

While receiving great achievements for their sixth album, balans managed to work and collaborate with many local, as well as international artists over the past years. Under the name New Balkan Wife, balans and Krava 22, a music collective and label from Belgrade, joined forces to release a collaborative album Ništaa in February of 2022.

Now, the trio are releasing their seventh body of work. Their second studio album, named “nima smisla“(Slovenian for “makes no sense, “whatever”), which delves even deeper into their raw minimalist sound. The 10 new songs deliver an already familiar outsider charisma, but with a more aggressive and determined voice. The bass gets clearer, the drums get sharper and the spaces created by huge reverbs and delays, get even more massive.

And so, we are to expect balans’ new masterpiece in the very near future.

Their latest single “v množici ljudi”:

Check the new music video for “ti si ogenj“:

Check the music video for “dežuje“:

In “Uganka” they indulge in mischief, spiced with an infectious vocal melody. A song that will not escape your ears so easily.

“balans are unsettlingly kooky. The Ljubljana two piece deliver a stripped down set of clipped drum machine rhythms, dark waved bass and dark vocals interring about the banality of day to day life. It’s hypnotic and genuinely odd and gets under your skin with its clipped shimmering weirdness.” – John Robb, Louder Than War @ Festival MENT

“[…] this Ljubljana based duo make experimental off-kilter pop that isn’t a million miles from

Warpaint, Effi Briest or even The Slits. Playing in front of a slide-heavy backdrop pierced by

strobes emitting a range of different colours colliding, they’re an audio-visual experience that leaves

little to the imagination.” – Dom Gourlay, Gigwise

Band photo: Tadej Vaukman

balans:
Kristin Čona – vox, guitar
Andrej Pervanje – vox, bass, drum machine
Jan Kmet – drums

______BALANS LINKS
contact: balansnalab@gmail.com
– INSTAGRAM @___balans___
– BANDCAMP

– YOUTUBE

______KAPA RECORDS LINKS:

contact: jan.robek@kaparecords.com
– FACEBOOK
– INSTAGRAM @kaparecords
– BANDCAMP