Nine months after the Slovenian duo performed to 200 million people at the Grand Final of Eurovision 2019, they have released their debut album. Following the release of their EP Štiri, they released “Come to Me” as their release to be sung entirely in English. The release also marked their first as ‘zalagasper’. Now, they have released their debut, featuring many of their pre-releases.
Speaking to ESCXTRA via our press centre live stream last year, Zala and Gašper told us that they were working on material in English. This was a response to the question of why the duo decided to keep their entry “Sebi” in Slovene. In addition, Gašper informed us that they were working on making their name more easy to pronounce for non-Slovene speakers.
Fast forward nine months and they have released their debut album, half of which is in English.
The track list is as follows:
štiri (side a)
1. valovi
2. baloni
3. s teboi
4. sebi
5. novo sonce (Dan D cover) (bonus track)
four (side b)
1. come to me
2. signals
3. me & my boi
4. box
5. Hazey (Glass Animals cover) (bonus track)
You can listen to the album below:
About zalagašper
Zala Kralj and Gašper Šantl are a couple (if you didn’t already notice), and have been performing together since 2017. The pair met after Zala began providing the vocals for some of Gašper’s songs, having both previously been solo artists. Earlier this year, they released their first EP, Štiri, which features four songs. Sebi, along with all their other released songs, were written by the duo.
They scored an unexpected landslide victory in the EMA superfinal against Raiven’s “Kaos”, earning almost 73% of the televote! In Tel Aviv, they qualified for the Grand Final after finishing 6th in the first semi-final. In the Grand Final, they finished 15th with 105 points. During the contest, their demeanour in interviews was met with scrutiny, to which they apologised and clarified their intentions.
Slovenia at the Eurovision Song Contest
Slovenia has competed 24 times as an independent nation. Previously, they have competed as Yugoslavia alongside: Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. As Yugoslavia, only four of the 27 entries were from Slovenia.
Slovenia officially debuted in 1993, where they won the right to compete after winning Kvalifikacija za Millstreet. They qualified along with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, who finished second and third respectively. Slovenia were represented in 1993 by 1X Band who sang “Tih deževen dan”. They finished in 22nd with Nine points.
Slovenia’s best ever finish at Eurovision is Seventh Place, which they have achieved twice. The first of those came in 1995, when Darja Švajger sang “Prisluhni mi”. Likewise the second of those came in 2001, when Nuša Derenda sang “Energy”.
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