Heartsink by PURGIST

 

Dawid Kowalski a.k.a. Purgist has been active musically for quite a while, changing aliases ( former Sleep Sessions) and working in collaboration with others. Quite busy with touring as well - Europe, U.S., Japan he has extensively experienced first hand the state of experimental noise drone scene in various places.

Since being a sonic erudite himself and thus making himself an outcast in terms of musical contents - I always felt that this is quite an encouraging factor in a world of templates and cliches.

What is instantly grasping in his work - it's definitely an easily recognizable production which is also not that easy to place since it has been filtered through his study of music as well as his own work with it. There are bits of modern post-industrial music, idm ( listen to those elaborate textures in ''Autoplastic Adaptation''), and also modern approach towards drone ambient music (vide Ben Frost, Tim Hecker, Grouper). But to me it's also something pretty much non existent in Polish music which is hauntology and very subtle links with vapour ambient ( Mchy i Porosty being probably the best example of this sub-genres).

Listening this album for a few times already, I cannot think of it, I mean I am trying to defend myself from thinking that this could be a soundtrack - but a special one - thing of an individual merit.

There's an obsessive set of patterns here that make me think of a true human drama. Something which is downplayed currently - we see so much of it and yet there is so much of it - completely unseen, and unheard of. A quest for love and understanding but it has been thwarted by some sort of flux of events or a set of  mechanisms that are not necessarily working towards some sort of solution.

It's a dense and intense trip inwards, a hypnagogic state of mind but quite lucid and quite a painful one but not in terms of sonic exploration but understanding the logos, the contents of this album.

A therapeutic and in some way also exhibitionist - showing the scars and insecurities.

It's all shaped in something familiar yet distant and quite analytical. It's an answer to the question - how could you use such an abstract and labour-consuming music production to express subtle states and emotions. You have it all here - an alphabet with a bar set quite high in terms of an audiophile sound work and very poignant narrative.

Bandcamp 

Dawid Kowalski's Purgist new CD recorded in anticipation of his 2022 US tour delivers aural atmospherics, waterlogged drones weather-beaten pulsations, unsoundness of being feeding a force of oscillations submitting to the physicality of flesh, metal and electronics framed within a psychological reckoning with themes of narcissism and the uncontrollable structures both psychic and physical. Original artwork and design by Justyna Bielecka.

credits

released July 15, 2022