Eccentricity and alienation are the stigmas that SBO have earned as the avant-garde of Ljubljana’s trap youth scene right from the very beginning. Their uncompromising presence and unapologetic expressiveness resonated like bass-heavy punk for the internet generation. Entertainers and depressives, quirky provocateurs with (oc)cult overtones, the so-called les enfants terribles of the local trap scene – but originally just high-school friends on a mission every Friday.
Behind the pseudonym SBO lies the band’s original name – SMRT BOGA IN OTROK (The Death of God and Children) – which made a splash on the Slovenian scene alongside the global rise of trap. After a string of post-factual feats, online hits, and appearances on the bizarre Slovenian YouTube trending chart with tracks like “Tipi so pičke,” “Sara Bezovšek,” “Tvrdi L,” and “P*** kurac,” they released their first mixtape album in collaboration with the duo AMN (“Heroina: Trake ljubezni,” 2017), which culminated in the formation of the pseudo-collective GuapoGang and the release of the now-classic “Cypher” featuring Senidah. Following the release of their official EP titled III (2018), the group experienced an internal, intimate crisis, which they explored in collaboration with Shao, leading to a double digital release (Sheitan en plastique, 2018, and Matin avec Sheitan, 2019) and increased demand for live performances. By returning to the originality of their sound, they brought their youthful phase to a close and went on hiatus following the release of their final EP (MMXV, 2019).
They officially ended their hiatus on November 1, 2020, with a dance music video for the single “Psihonaut” and an online event on December 8h as a part of Kino Šiška’s pandemic concert series. A compilation of all their earliest viral hits was also released on all streaming platforms, titled MMXV [B side] (2020). Their comeback marked the beginning of their collaboration with the SonicTribe label and they released the single “Postaja F” along with a music video in the lead-up to the album. On March 14, 2021, SBO released their long-awaited, first official full-length album titled TRANS. The album’s release was accompanied by a music video for the opening track, “Ljubljana je Berlin.” In it, through a tribute to iconic Slovenian music videos, a montage implosion takes place, revealing the men behind the scenes as the frontmen of Slovenian pop. Grega Skočir and Igor Bavčar. Plebiscit and “Geburt einer Nation.” Challe Salle rapping “Keš p*čke” and Marjana Deržaj singing “Zdravljica” to a live accompaniment by Videosex. Throughout the course of fourteen tracks, the Ljubljana-based experimentalists present themselves as children of Slovenia’s political transition, thereby marking their own shift from the controversy of trap to the introspection of garage, house, and electro.
April 23, 2024: NEMOČ takes the spotlight on streaming platforms. The band’s experimental streak explodes into a blood-red cocktail of pop-rap, dark trap, ’80s electro synth, afro, baile, and early 2000s R&B. The result of three years of creative work stands in contrast to their debut album and their previous expressive exploration of collective identities. The band uses its fourteen tracks to diagnose inner struggles, gentrification, markers of cultural elitism, and the glorification of female figures. It is an intimate, dark, and banging exploration of the pain that the years have brought to high-school friends in a joke that may have gone too far.
Then it falls apart at its most vulnerable point. The band, now almost following a pattern, makes the difficult and painful decision to take another one-year hiatus due to major personal changes and the members’ extraordinary commitments. With the loss of the studio that had long served as their nighttime refuge, the silence and their conscience become too loud. The band decides to take a lap of honor. With Uranus’s transit into Gemini, the band is finally ready for graduation and an immediate, forced retirement. With the utopian gesture of farewell concerts and a special musical release, the circle of friendship – and deep alienation from the global mainstream – closes the loop. One thing is certain: the epitaph on their tombstone will remain as a reminder that the cry of critical thought always means freedom or death. SBO FOREVER.
Organisation: Kino Šiška and SBO.
