Michał Biela "s/t"

 

 The name of the singer/songwriters' league is legion. Dylanesque archetype of the acoustic guitar music and vocals blend with poetic texts are common way to either blossoming noise of pompousness or an outlet for an artist who can take a breather from experimentalism and turn his professional experience into gold of subtleness. 

Michał Biela and his solo debut album blends his previous experience from one of my favourite guitar bands Kristen, his experience in Ścianka luminaries and the latest one Kings of Caramel. You might of course try to classify it or at least find a file which this modest cd might fit. But it has its own right to be as it is and sounds really fresh. As he stated himself - he felt more confident with composing his own songs.

With a little help from his friends of  Małgorzata Penkalla, Magdalena Gajdzica, Karolina Rec whose voices you can hear he created a set of intimate stories played on baritone guitar and sung by his own voice. You can hear a tiny bit of experimentalism in the background ( quite krauty Waxwings) but the vocal harmonies and the guitar take the lead. Other than that it feels just right to listen to a material that might have been bound to be just another similar cd with meaningless songs - instead what we get is a highly individualised collection of minute stories of intimacy and depth which certainly will ask itself for repeated playing mode. I also feel that Michał's voice is a vice - unpretentional and smooth. Good on ya...roll it on.