Šablona means “template”, but Tepih (literally “carpet”) spend the entire album gleefully unraveling any sense of pattern. This Slovenian-Swiss quartet - Gaudenz Badrutt (electronics), Toma Grom (double bass, electronics), Jonas Kocher (accordion), and Samo Kutin (hurdy-gurdy) - have spent years together in the Šalter Ensemble. Their debut as Tepih sounds like four conspirators deciding the only rule is that rules exist to be bent until they squeak.

The instrumentation itself feels like a prank pulled on history: the hurdy-gurdy, once the workhorse of medieval dance, is wired and overdriven until it buzzes like an angry transformer. The accordion, often a symbol of communal warmth, is stretched into whispers and sirens. The double bass mutters and groans like a tectonic shift, while Badrutt’s electronics flicker in and out, a ghost network connecting everything.

Each track title (from Vec prekinjenih ponovitev - “many interrupted repetitions” - to Blindes Raster - “blind grid”) hints at the joke: templates that collapse, grids that misalign, repetitions sabotaged mid-flow. This isn’t music of unity but of coexistence: four vectors crossing, never quite blending, but always listening, adjusting, sparking.

There are no lyrics, but there’s certainly language: a polyglot of friction, buzzing drones, clattering pulses, and delicate suspensions. It is a sound that evokes imagined folklore for a planet that never existed - one where electricity was discovered before wood, and drones before songs.

The irony is that, despite its refusal to conform, Šablona is remarkably cohesive. The album’s six pieces weave themselves into a sonic carpet, but a carpet full of holes, frayed edges, threads pulling you sideways. Tepih remind us that templates are only starting points; the art lies in how you trip over them, how you let them unravel, and how beautiful the mess can be.

This is not comfort music. It’s the sound of four musicians tugging at the seams of tradition until it comes apart in their hands - then showing you the strange, dazzling patterns hidden underneath.