Jeff Gburek returns to these pages presenting an album featuring himself improvising on his mandolin. The album is sparse and very well recorded. The clarity really helps one to focus on the sounds emanating from his weapon of choice. Think of a mix between experimental music, jazz, a horror soundtrack, and your friend musing.
Many honorable composers of note were fascinated by radio static, and as someone who owned a shortwave radio in my youth, I happily admit to having the same fascination with such crunchy sound. Our friend Jeff Gburek uses radio sounds for his latest release. From his Bandcamp site: “This album combines a recent sequence of Shortwave radio capture performances from late April (tracks 1 – 11) and two VLF recordings from the X class solar flare and geomagnetic storm day May 11. Inspired to put this album out quickly after hearing what seemed to be a call for newly recorded…
This is some of the best late-night listening I’ve heard in a long time. Neither Jeff Gburek nor Karolina Ossowska ever fail to please my ears, whether it be with a deep intellectual piece or compositions which teeter on the edge of being mournful, but this one deserves a special place in the collection. From Jeff’s Bandcamp site: “Inspired in part by a recent renaissance in listening to dhrupad and other music of the Indian subcontinent and early European music, I transformed my standard GDR zither into a swarmandal, developing a full moon raga scale. When I invited Karolina to…
Today is a travel day, so I leave you in the ever-capable hands of Jeff Gburek and one of his latest creations.
Adam Majdecki-Janicki (a.k.a. Adam Kaufmann) is one of the leading lights in the Polish neo-psychedelic rock music scene. This album serves as a good introduction to the broad palette of his work.
No wishes, no hopes for the year, just a pleasant way to gently slide into 2024. We launch with Jeff Gburek’s latest release, of which he provides notes on his Bandcamp site: “Still Life with a Question Mark came together as an album rather quickly after I discovered loops unused from an older project fit very well with the latest work I’d done in seclusion at Dom Sztuk, Kęszyca. Captures of VLF radio (ionospheric geomagnetic crackling impulses), hydrophone recordings from Solacz pond, frame drums, zither played with ebow, looped guitar and string passages, synthesizer, shortwave radio, textures of leaves, wood,…
Jeff Gburek’s latest album is not a departure from his carefully crafter work, but a continuation of his honing sounds together, weaving them in a way that the early musique-concrète composers could not have imagined. Drones, pulses and the sounds of Burgas, Bulgaria, are blended to produce an immersive soundscape. Yet another fine work.
Mirt, a Polish experimental artists, offers up sound recordings from Thailand. From his Bandcamp site: “This is another part of an ongoing series of recordings made on Tarutao island. This time, the entire album focuses on the overall soundscape of the island and is a collection of random recordings I made during last trip to Tarutao National Park. Tracks 1 and 3 are recorded from a drop rig with no human presence on site and seem particularly interesting. Although these are not binaural recordings, I recommend listening with headphones.”
Had I not known the previous (impressive) works of both Jeff Gburek and A.J. Kaufmann, I would have happily believed that this was a lost psychedelic music gem long forgotten about in a basement studio recorded during Soviet times. While the tones are dulcet, you never really get a chance to get into a groove. The music shapes and shifts, making you ever aware of its presence and demanding that you pay attention (particularly hard to do as I’m grading papers at the moment). The introduction to the album at Ramble Records’ Bandcamp site is one of the most elegant…
Though there are only two tracks currently available to listen to on this album, Frukstrakt, a new ethno-jazz album by Polish bassist Michał Aftyka and his quintet is as cool as anything ECM Records has released that would qualify as Nordic jazz.