Brzmi w Trzcinie #1: Our Favorite Polish Albums of 2023
Featuring Zaumne, Martyna Basta, ALEKS ANDRA, Piotr Kurek, and more
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Brzmi w Trzcinie!
What you’re about to read is the result of a collaboration between two friends, six thousand miles apart and two years in the making, who reconnected with a new desire to write and to make that writing about something that’s close to our hearts. We met twenty years ago when we both used Polish to review music with (predominantly) English lyrics, only to now take a shot at doing the opposite. Our individual motivations may differ slightly, but we both felt that there was value in—and maybe even a need for—giving English-language coverage to new music from our shared place of origin.
Today, we’re bringing you an alphabetical roundup of some of our favorite Polish releases of 2023. We’ve defined this label to be somewhat open, including albums by artists based in Poland but released on international labels, as well as collaborative releases with musicians from other parts of the world. Some high-profile records made the list; even though these have been written about extensively by major international publications, we still believed that no 2023 “best-of” list would feel quite right without them. Otherwise we did our best to give recognition to artists about whose music little or no English-language writing exists.
You can learn more about us and this newsletter here, as well a listen to an accompanying playlist at the bottom of this post. Thank you for giving us your time, and we hope you enjoy our selection. —Patryk Mrozek & Łukasz Konatowicz, December 2023
ALEKS ANDRA, 23 EP (self-released)
Enigmatic singer ALEKS ANDRA has recorded what I can only call my favorite Polish pop record of the year. Her debut EP 23 is a short and bittersweet collection of minimalist, seemingly ‘90s-influenced R&B songs that sit well alongside stuff like this year's Tirzah record, while also being both weirder and more song oriented. It's a surprisingly varied record of sticky hooks paired with warped, stark beats, and at times the two layers seem at the verge of coming apart. The opener “Nie wychylaj się” is full of disorienting little bits coming at you from all sides with no apparent center of gravity, all the parts hanging in so much empty space. Imagine some obscure minimal wave act from Europe doing Destiny's Child and you can start picturing the vibes on 23. But then you wouldn't expect references to bands such as American Football in the lovely guitar-based ballad “Czerwiec.” This is the best kind of EP: fully satisfying on its own, but also leaving you to wonder what comes next. —Łukasz Konatowicz
Martyna Basta, Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering (Warm Winters Ltd.)
Arguably the most widely acclaimed experimental release from a Polish artist this year, Martyna Basta’s patchwork treatise on the subject of memory deserves all the attention it’s gotten. Weaving together stony whispers and mournful keens, sparse acoustic instrumentation (with only the zither featuring prominently), and field recordings of what might be most aptly described as “the sounds of physical manifestations of life rubbing against space,” the album gives otherworldly, haunting, and bleak on first listen. Upon further immersion, however, it presents itself rather as a peek into the mundane. While Basta might have taken up memory as the album’s theme, Slowly Forgetting, Barely Remembering doesn’t feel like a depiction of the infringing of the past on the present, but more of a blown-up image of that tiny freckle in time where the present becomes the past. This process happens through an imperfect, scattered repetition of discernible musical motifs; you know they’re coming, but you don’t know exactly when and how. It is a randomness whose predictability evokes the sensation of the passing of time when you’re too immersed in life to really pay attention to it: a very rare state for music to be able to capture with such high fidelity and grace. —Patryk Mrozek
Earth Trax, Closer Now (Lapsus Records)
Bartosz Kruczyński has spent the last decade creating his own multiverse of melodic, wistful electronic music as The Phantom, Pejzaż, Earth Trax, under his own name and as half of the duo Ptaki. It's a pretty diverse catalogue dipping into deep house, disco, new age, forward thinking techno and Glassian minimalism, but his melancholic touch and dreamy shimmer are unmistakable. “Closer Now” sees Earth Trax, so far the most club-oriented of Kruczyński's projects, in its most delicate and pristine form while digging deep into ‘90s vibes. At times, like in the eerie opening title track or gentle “Bruises,” the music recalls 76:14, the downtempo masterpiece of Global Communication. “Understand” dips into some anthemic trance while “Pied Piper” is prime era pastoral electronica of Boards of Canada. It's probably the least wild of the Earth Trax albums: a surprisingly mellow affair, but also a very confident, well-crafted record that's as thought-provoking as it is fun. —Łukasz Konatowicz
Egipcjanie, Czas dla siebie (Thin Man)
This is is potentially a party record, but most definitely a party of a record with Jędrzej „Egipcjanie” Szymanowski as its host and plenty of guests including members of Rycerzyki, Wczasy, Pies and Ewa Sad (see below). It's somewhat silly (I mean, it's a solo project called The Egyptians), at times very catchy—“Rodział” and “Kto wie ten wie” are genuine anthems of slanted indie pop—and hides some real songwriting sophistication and deep knowledge of pop music behind the jokey slacker façade. Not to mention some actual emotional depth and resonance. You could argue that Szymanowski ponders some serious stuff about adulthood and meaning of life here, just from behind fuzzy 90's style guitars and propped by big pop hooks. Sometimes the guy who can't stop joking is the smartest person at the party. —Łukasz Konatowicz
Krajobrazy, Krajobrazy (self-released)
Their Bandcamp description reads: “Krajobrazy is an ambient project and event series by aheloy! and jamaszka FT founded on a hot summer day in 2017. We were feeling that there is a lack of ambient or after-hours type-of-music parties in Kraków, so we decided to make our own in a public park.” Apparently “the event was warmly received and turned into an irregular series and studio project,” which leads us to this sprawling mess of a debut album (just look at the cover!) And I mean that in a good way—it's a chaotic delight of soft-focus ambient blended, seemingly at random, with skittering beat-based tracks ranging from glitch to drum & bass. It's a stoned summer trip of a record, filled with almost new age synths straight from a Iasos album (“palais ideal,” “morze,”) found sounds, film samples, some Chris Rea-esque guitar (“flood,”) gurgling rhythms (“dubowy,”) and various out-of-context voices including a very weird Polish motivational speaker. It's a rare record that seems to make less sense the more you listen to it, but that's beside the point; just let the vibes wash over you. —Łukasz Konatowicz
Piotr Kurek, Peach Blossom & Smartwoods (Mondoj & Unsound)
Peach Blossom, the first of a duo of established avant-garde tinkerer Piotr Kurek’s 2023 albums, might just be his most joyfully deceptive release to date. At first glance a percussion-aided study of vocal harmonies, both human (yet often steeped in auto-tune) and entirely synthesized, the album eschews recognizable songwriting traditions, offering an artfully distorted simulacra of genres, moods, and textures instead. Not unlike last year’s astounding “Syphon” by Wojciech Rusin, Peach Blossom deals in intimacy that towers with unexpected grandeur, carefully composed notation that falls apart like free jazz, and thousands-year old chanting techniques that come off like alien mating calls. In Kurek’s world, a cappella singing can sound as ornate as a full orchestra, and schmaltzy strings land as soft as a sigh dissipating in the air. Best illustrated in standout track “Breathing,” Peach Blossom is a field recording of an environment that’s completely unfamiliar yet feels very much like home.
Smartwoods, on the other hand, sounds as if an ensemble of classically-trained musicians tried to recreate Peach Blossom from memory, using a rather minimal assortment of instruments: clarinet, double bass, flute, harp, Kurek’s piano. Aside from sporadic vocalizations (some of which may be involuntary), singing is mostly absent from the record, and electronics are buried in the mix for a much more tactile affair than Kurek’s previous LP. For the majority of time, the musicians’ playing is unhurried and intuitive. Rather than following a set of guidelines, they appear to be going about their business driven by routine, whim, and momentary bouts of inspiration, only keeping up with what everyone else is doing by means of occasional overhearing or a fleeting conversation. Melodies ebb and flow like people moving about town, sporadically coming together in moments that feel almost accidental: as if everyone ran into each other and united their monologues in a joyful celebration. In a musical landscape replete with “deconstructed” genres, Smartwoods shows a kind of “deconstructed musicianship,” testing the boundaries between structure and chaos in the act of communal music-making. —Patryk Mrozek
julek ploski, Hotel ***** (Orange Milk)
Though early 2023 single “Remiza Nidzica” didn’t make it on Hotel *****, Julek Ploski’s debut release for Ohio label Orange Milk, the snappy banger’s title reveals a lot about the type of music you’ll find on the album. In rural Poland of the mid-‘90s, remizy (fire stations) served as the go-to venues for disco polo, eurodance, and techno debaucheries; Nidzica, on the other hand, is the location of one of the country’s best known Teutonic Order castles. Combining these two not-so-distant reference points paints an aesthetic that marries Poland’s medieval roots with the post-communist lineage of its electronic music scene. Add to that Ploski’s self-avowed love for big-budget movie soundtracks, and you’ll get an album that often sounds as if Lorenzo Senni was scoring Game of Thrones. Supersaws abound, but next to quaint glockenspiel, woodwind and harp samples, they are largely decontextualized from their usual functions in trance; instead, they’re just some of the tones in a very eclectic palette used to create what Ploski describes as trailer-core: sonically and emotionally condensed, classically inspired compositions. Hotel ***** is a testament to how rave music vocabulary can be drawn from to make music of boundless creativity and a fresh stylistic framework. —Patryk Mrozek
Hania Rani, On Giacometti (Gondwana Records)
The first great record by a Polish artist I heard this year (back in mid-February) might also be its prettiest overall. A trim and lacy piano score for Susanna Fanzun’s documentary about sculptor Alberto Giacometti and his family, the album was composed in the Swiss Alps during winter—a fact that you simply can’t unhear when listening to it. According to Rani these repetitive, minimal but catchy piano motifs, set against a backdrop of subdued pads and occasional strings were “inspired by the silence of the mountains,” and while it’s clear that the music’s negative space reflects the eerie quietness of a snowed-in environment, the album’s aura is much too intimate for it to resemble a landscape painting. The spillover sound of the keys being pressed and a living, breathing pianist moving around in her seat bring the music back to an enclosed space: a refuge of sorts. Together they seem to move the focus of On Giacometti over to Rani’s very existence in said space, however respectful and unassuming it might be: an existence that’s heard in the most subtle of ways, ultimately making the album sound either like dreaming about music or music about a dream. —Patryk Mrozek
Ewa Sad, BUM BUM (enjoy life)
With Yves Tumor releasing an approachable, warm and melodic record this year, Bum Bum by Ewa Sad (formerly of the great defunct duo Sorja Morja) is your stop for post-genre arty spookiness. Environmentally conscious goth? Yes. Doom-stricken eurodance? Sure. Auto-tune folk? Probably. There's also a Nyan Cat-adjacent instrumental skit called “Cha Cha.” Well, it's a sprawl, but it still clocks under 40 minutes, even with the awesome bonus single “Grzyby” attached at the end of the streaming edition. Ideas fly by quickly, sometimes morphing in the space of one track, often coalescing into fully formed songs like “Jabłko” or “Serce,” but never taking too long, as these are mostly two-minute songs. What unifies them is the anxious mood, great sonics (some of these might be sketches, but they all sound lush, mixing minimal arrangements with dreamy atmospherics like some hypermodern version of early ‘80s the Cure) and Ewa's cooly detached voice, providing some calm in the storm of ideas. —Łukasz Konatowicz
Various Artists, Not So Far in the East (regime brigade)
Not all the artists on this compilation come from Poland, and not all of its tracks have been made in 2023. I’d be remiss though not to highlight this massive, hard-hitting farewell statement from regime brigade, a Wroclaw collective whose weekly show on Radio LUZ ended in March after ten years of sculpting their very own take on leftfield electronic music. The album showcases productions from several Ukrainian producers, and all the proceeds from its digital sales have been donated to Voices of Children: a volunteer organization that’s taken on the herculean task of helping families deal with the day-to-day consequences of a disastrous war that’s still going on, well, not so far in the East. Boasting 40 tracks that cover impressively vast ground, from lush ambient to IDM to dub techno to breakbeat and bubblegum bass, and bring to mind early-tens Night Slugs productions next to Mono No Aware and Mouse on Mars deep cuts, the collection’s ambience is surprisingly consistent. There’s a certain cloudiness to all these tracks, but also a palpable sense of camaraderie; capturing a snapshot of a diverse yet close-knit creative scene, NSFITE is a hyper-localized portrayal of a communal fascination with music’s most progressive corners. —Patryk Mrozek
Zaumne, Parfum (Sferic)
Less overtly dark and more melodic than Zaumne's previous album, Dreams of Teeth Falling Out, Parfum is actually every bit as unsettling. This is a darkly decadent record that combines the prettiest melodies of Mateusz Olszewski's career with fragments of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal used for ASMR and some haunting atmospherics. Mostly beatless, languid tracks like “Voyageur” or “Éther” can seem either relaxing or creepy, and probably are both. This is fitting for a record mostly made up of contradictions. It's sparse with not much going on at any given moment, but it also feels luxurious when its undulating textures and tasteful acoustic instrumentation come to the fore. It's mood music: the kind of ambient that likes to almost statically linger in place, but it's also a borderline dream pop record that at times can evoke artists like HTRK, Seefeel, and the more abstract end of Slowdive's catalog. It's also a tight album of tracks that average at 4 minutes and can be intense to the point of draining. Thankfully they actually end up being addictive. —Łukasz Konatowicz
Wacław Zimpel, Train Spotter (The state51 Conspiracy)
Made by seasoned Warsaw composer, multi-instrumentalist, and electronic music producer Wacław Zimpel, Train Spotter is a semi-conceptual homage to its creator’s hometown; set on capturing the sound of the city amid a backdrop of societal and environmental changes, the album’s synth textures are deafeningly thick and their movement relentless, multidirectional, and intertwined. From the teutonic-space-disco of its eponymous opener, through a duo of ambient tracks that slacken the reins to give room for the leads to launch into free meandering, to the syncopated clubby percussion of “Born in Captivity,” the LP blends the machine-age origins and spearheading attitude of techno with songwriting techniques that feel ancient, soaking the resulting mix with sonics from all corners of the historical splatter. And in doing so, it really does end up like an apt musical allegory for a city that’s literally rebuilt itself from the ground up after WWII, only to continue its perpetual swing between tradition and progress. —Patryk Mrozek
Honorable Mentions
ania grr, paska - bajki EP (self-released)
Martyna Basta - Diaries Beneath Fragile Glass EP (Stroom)
Tomasz Bednarczyk - Catbient (SomewhereNowh
Bakblivv - Piece of Stone (Pointless Geometry)
Hage-o, HAGEUKO EP (Peleton Records)
K:i:o:s:k - A Better Tomorrow EP (00effort)
Jachna/Mazurkiewicz/Buhl - [...] (Audio Cave)
Jeremixyz - xyz EP (BFF Music)
Jakub Lemiszewski - Ulice Są Moje (self-released)
Piotrek Markowicz - Up the River (Opus Elefantum)
OPLA - GTI (Pointless Geometry)
Pejzaż - List I & II (The Very Polish Cut Outs)
Pruski - Private Language (Whitelabrecs)
Raphael Rogiński - Talán (Instant Classic)
SKI - KRE (Pointless Geometry)