Uzmi Ruke

Location: Varaždin, Croatia

Year active: 2001-2002

Members: Tomislav Pintarić, Krešo Žerjav, Ištvan & ????

Related bands: Britney's Pierce, Clean, Dead Dog Summer, Directed Crew, The Farewell Reason, Nikad, Ponor, Senata Fox

FFO: Slint, Toundra and Indian Summer (Promo demo).

Ashes, Friends Unseen, Everyone Asked About You (Unreleased demo).

One day, I came across this band on Discogs by accident. The release was submitted by Karmakumulator aka. the owner behind GuranjeSLitice label and is responsible for his YouTube channel archiving obscure Croatian underground music scene. Admittedly, he only has the artwork whose CDr was lost at the time, therefore rendering it hard to find. Like him, i too tried my hardest to dig through the depths of the internet. Luckily, one member of Punk U Jugoslaviji FB group was so kind to send me the three track demo and i was more than happy to put it up on my YT channel. Alternatively, a friend of mine gave me a bootleg mixtape containing several bands, including Uzmi Ruke at the end of one side.

Lo and behold, Uzmi Ruke (Take the hands), a really (and i mean REALLY) short-lived band from Varaždin. They play post-rock (with a hint of Slint) and emo (kinda like a southeastern european Indian Summer).

The Promo Demo opens with an untitled instrumental first track clocking around six minutes and we are finally introduced to pained and heartfelt male vocals on "Udahni" for 4 minutes and "Merrin". The last track feels longer (seven minutes) than the first two and is minimal in terms of vocal use while still being epic. It is also reminiscent of Toundra (who didn't exist yet back then) without metal elements.

S/T Demo (2002)

Stream here.

But i didn't find just that one. When i came across a rare live pic (with Tomislav visible) of an apparent band (with female lead singer not present on the 2002 demo) on last.fm, i had to contact the uploader who then went through great lengths in sending me 4 more tracks and believe me, this sounds different. Similar but different.

In this 4-track demo EP, it takes on a more-or-less typical emocore approach, in the vein of Ashes, Friends Unseen and pretty much the midwest emo that we're familiar with. Slow, emotional and heartfelt music accompanying raw but genuine female vocals. Best example being track 1 (which i'd call Probudi se [Wake Up]). The last three tracks are more of the same as the first one, but still true to the genre regardless.

Stream here.

So not only did i find one release by that band, but i also found another one, which sounded different. The question is, has Tomislav been in the band the entire time? Who knows, but maybe only he can answer the question and i'm more than glad to hear it.

Download here.