Tsev Meets Strzał w Kolano
Once in a while I am getting to review albums that are so much out there that apart from obvious influences it is pretty difficult if not impossible to describe them which is to say that the importance and the value of the music is really high, on an equal level of sophistication that it would be an understatement to say that they embrace so many different compositional, illustrational aspects.
Jakub Majchrzak who is Polish guitarist and basist, you might know him from projects/bands such as Kurws or Przepych, now solo under the alias Strzał w Kolano) and Tsev who is a Greek experimental multiinstrumentalist using variety of means – got together to create an album which is coming out now.. "Tsev meets Strzał w Kolano", will be premiered on April 28th on tape by French/Polish label Random Seat and Greek net label Paragka. It is coming out both as a cassette and a DL.
Four compositions which set up the bar quite high when it comes to a cross between a composition and improvisation. But also, a unique combination of microtonal synthesizer and amplified acoustic guitar.
In terms of composition – it’s a great blend of sonorous dissonance and polyphony that both musicians and instruments introduce. I think in terms of improvisations – a duo is a perfect solution as it emphasizes both listening to each other and using all available techniques to either boost each other’s input and make the whole of the composition sound well-rounded and to the point.
Great thing that you immediately notice about the whole album – is its dynamic range, variety of nuances and elements that normally wouldn’t be so interesting if it wasn’t for the personalities of both Jakub and Tsev. Hopefully they will work together again.
1. Wodospady (8’22’’)
2. Brytyjskie bogatki spijają śmietankę w dwóch aktach (2’15’’)
3. Blessed is the Common Delusion (6’11’’)
4. Βιρτουόζοι του τίποτα (6’18’’)
It was all bucked up and at least a couple of dozen meters long, because the longer I was chasing it, assuming that the tape must eventually lead to the spool, the more this one seemed unreachable. Each successive turn surprised me with an ever-rolling tape, shifting under me as if I were a tape head.
It refused to unravel. Rolling and unrolling, and rolling and unrolling again - because every now and then it crumpled under the spool, as if it wanted to hide, as if it wasn't enough of a mystery - I’ve finally packed it all into a cassette, the last one that actually has screws that allow it to open and close. I found a new home for it.
It had to be some very strong magnetic process used during the recording, because as soon as I heard the first note, my ear was glued to the speaker. The diaphragm transmitted vibrations, but these could not be placed historically in any way. Surely it had to be some kind of keyboard instrument, but from what era? In my head, I saw the shrunken drawstrings of the tracksuit flourish into baroque cuffs and dance over the keys. My imagination slid over the hands, from the place where the vague intentions of the muscles begin, to the place where the fingers already express them. These, in turn, drawing themselves in shadow over the keys, nullified the chromatic consensus of black and white.
The timbre, the tone, the melody - it didn't resemble anything that fit between the frets of my guitar. I tried. Fingers, like nervous little people, ran here and there through the abyssal space of intervals, every now and then stumbling over a metal fret growing imperceptibly out of the deceptively smooth surface of the wooden neck - before they could get back into position, the fret reached the size of the monolith from “A Space Odyssey” and looked down on them. The trap lurked at every turn. I already thought I had found the right pitch, when my grip was seized by a tremor, a little from excitement and a little from fear that I was about to lose it - and a moment later, when I was already a little more confident, unlaced, allowing myself a slight change of course, of melody, I suddenly felt how the following pitch viciously evaded me and disappeared, as if it had never been here.
With my thoughts still balancing on the string, I hung my gaze on the taut tape gliding down the hillside of Dafni in Athens. Gazing at the shiny line of brown nylon, I was rewinding its contents in my brain: the original message was now covered with an extra coating of my shaky tones. Somehow the spool managed to find its way home and back to me - even repeatedly. And that's how it rolled our conversation on, me with the other. I got used to these walks: always heading down, following the tape as if it were a handrail. Or a footbridge flipped across. He would throw at mine, I would throw back toward him. The throws became more and more audacious, rustling through the air, carrying more and more sentences of our non-verbal exchange. My tone responded to his, his to mine. We built polymetries of vibrating waves, dissonances of tones, polyphonies of melodies, eventually reaching the scale of an advanced musical architecture devoid, however, of a solid foundation. We tried to communicate without knowing at all what was actually being communicated. If we had any knowledge in common, it concerned our shared ignorance.
I finally flew home - the tape, however, had to follow my carbon footprint. It wiggled clumsily all the way to Poland, then back to Greece. After two weeks, the sky thus pored over resembled some sort of palimpsest. Each line shot up holy in the belief that here it was, the right one to match with its brotherly trajectory - we came out of it with a sort of pan-European harmony. Yet the clouds still vibrate from the dissonance, and the sky is filled with well-documented misunderstanding, dropping tapes triumphantly like confetti.
credits
releases April 28, 2026
Tsev - microtonal synthesizer
Strzał w Kolano - amplified classical guitar
Recorded, mixed and mastered by Sotiris Ziliaskopoulos
Cover artwork by Marina Fragkioudaki
Cassette artwork and the story by Jakub Majchrzak
(edited by Łukasz Plata)
Composed, rehearsed and recorded in Athens between 10-25/10/2024
Released by Random Seat and Paragka.
Comments
Post a Comment