I transformed the light into darkness
simply by closing my eyes
I transformed the darkness into light
simply by opening my eyes
I am you
Disguised as me
Remember that in your dealings
The dinosaur chases the Christian and hounds him till the end and says
‘when I come back, I want to be a materialist.’
We approached the castle, our intentions clearer than our exit plan, under the cover of a cloudless sky. We sought to bring words to the wordless, but their defence of silence was much stronger than anticipated, so we tried again at a later day, under a Godless sky, bringing conversion weapons full of disposal. The fabric of our reality was thinner than our thoughts, however, and soon we were plunged into a shallow abyss, the edges as near as they were closed. We sat and reasoned, how can we escape? ‘Let’s go into the castle,’ I suggested, and the drawbridge lowered, empty of defence. In we went, no longer intentional. The king was waiting; the king and an eye. The eye spoke first, how far have you wandered? ‘We haven’t left at all,’ I said, ‘I’m still at home, what are you doing in my lounge?’
So, despite being far too skint to buy anything, the glutton for punishment that is me will keep listening to stuff that’s new to these ears. I mean, it’s not as if I don’t have a decent library already… speaking of which, I have been meaning to do a couple of posts about blasts from my past but I keep getting distracted.
This is a case in point. I listened to this thing this morning whilst supposedly doing some work, and my brain melted in sheer pleasure. I didn’t know what to expect, except that this label has released stuff by Kuba Ziolek under his various guises, and I have a lot of respect for the man. He may be involved with this too – somebody called Kuba designed the intriguing cover – but I’ve found it quite difficult to find anything out about these peeps, although I imagine it’s entirely possible there’s more than one creative person with Kuba as his salutation.
This release comprises of one loooong song from each artist. The tune from ARRM is pleasantly doom-laden, and quite post-rocky in it’s way, and for that combination to not bore me across 20-minutes of playing time means they’re doing something right. Most importantly, it obviously set me up perfectly for what was to follow. It was the tune from the brilliantly named Lonker See that melted my brain, though for the first five minutes or so I was a little sceptical. It started to change when the female vocals came in, and from then on it just kept going until a state of ecstasy was reached. This has a more jazzy feel, a sort of chanting, ecstatically doomy work of unutterable perfection. I realise that description is utterly meaningless, but come on – I have had my brain melted. Perhaps we could say the nearest reference point would be a slower Selim Lemouchi and his Enemies.
Because I don’t understand Polish, I don’t know anything about these. The blurb on the page though tells me they have a Discordian thing going on, which may or may not be relevant to anything at all.
Most artists I make public my liking for have a way with a groove. Probably a well-functioning groove is amongst the most reliable ways of catching my attention. And yet – with the greatest respect due to Kuba Ziolek – this album is not going to catch you via groove. The same is true for one of his other projects that I listed in some year end list or other a while back, Stara Rzeka. This is a journey, instead, but not one including picnics.
It took me a little while to work out why he’s used two different names, but I think I sort of get it now in a way I cannot possibly put into words. Coincidentally, the stylistic sweep of this music is such that I cannot possibly put it into words either. That’s a bit of a common theme for me.
So, it’s heavy in a skull crushing heavy rock, post-rock, death metal, spazz rock, jazzy, acoustic lament, fusion, ambient, at times melodic and wistful way – on Tzimtzum I think he tries to capture every single style he’s ever attempted when laden with a guitar, and it most certainly would not be out of place on Ipecac records. At all times the music is overlaid by guitars so thoroughly drowned in reverb that it’s as if he’s replaced the Baltic Sea with reverb and recorded them there. But it is intense, and if you don’t want intense today, go and listen to this instead. However, if I’ve piqued your interest and you do want intense, well, Kuba’s your man, and not for the first time.
Soundbergs 