Record Reviews

	SHADOWLAND ~ THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS VERGLAS 010 ~ UK ~ Progressive Rock 2nd album from 1993 by this UK Neo-Prog group led by Clive Nolan from Arena and Pendragon. Beautiful melodies and gentle themes based on literary influences (mainly Lewis CarrollFind albums by this artist) are the main characteristic of the group`s music. Excellently played and sung, this is Neo-Prog at its best.
Updated: 31/03/2024Posted:	CD 1 Bonus Tracks Recommend To A Friend

IRKA ZAPOLSKA QUARTET ~ PERCEPTION OF PRECEPTION NOT ON LABEL 5904933517718 (Barcode: 5904933517718) ~ POLAND ~ Avant-Garde Jazz Recorded: 2021 Released: 2023 This is the debut album by Polish Jazz vocalist / songwriter Irka ZapolskaFind albums by this artist. The album was recorded in a classic vocalist / piano trio setting with the vocalist supported by pianist / composer Dominik KisielFind albums by this artist, bassist Filip ArasimowiczFind albums by this artist and drummer Maksymilian KreftFind albums by this artist. The album presents five tracks, all of which are original “songs” co-composed by Kisiel and Zapolska, four with lyrics by Zapolska (in English) and one based on excerpts from “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” by Lewis CarrollFind albums by this artist, translated into Polish. Two of the tracks are over then minutes in duration. There is absolutely nothing conventional about this album and it is strikingly original. There is almost no straightforward music per se herein, just fragments of sounds and hints of melodies, the vocals are a combination of recitation and free style / improvised singing / vocalese, in short this is a brilliantly fresh Avant-Garde, which is almost unheard of on the Polish Jazz scene since decades. I should have expected this just from the appearance of the name of Kisiel on the cover, who in the last few years managed to produce some of the most original and outstanding music on the Polish scene, but this album still caught me completely unprepared and left me speechless. The quartet is basically improvising on everything possible while creating this album: the sounds and the silences, the words and syllables, the rhythms and a-rhythms and all the sounds produced by the voice and the instruments – absolutely everything is twisted and amended from the norm, not surprisingly similar in spirit to the fashion of the brilliant writings by Carroll. I am not crazy about Polish singers using lyrics in English, but in this case accent and pronunciation are meaningless anyway, so this can be easily forgotten. In some cases, the songs start off almost “normally”, with a blink of a melody and harmony, only to be dispersed all over the place and forgotten in the process. The most beautiful thing about this music is the fact, that the crazier it gets, the better it sounds, shaking some profound conceptions about music in general and Jazz in particular. It takes a truly brilliant mind to conceive this music and some giant balls / ovaries to bring it to life. In these shallow times, where everything is about hype and appearances, young musicians creating such profound music are perhaps the last rays of hope as far as music is concerned. Overall, this is an absolutely stunning, magical, unconventional and meaningful piece of music, definitely one of the best Jazz related albums on the Polish / European scene that I had the immense pleasure to listen to in a very long while. It is probably a one of a kind strike of luck, so I am not even hoping anything like this can be repeated again, but one can always dream…

Updated: 31/03/2024Posted: 31/03/2024

CD 1 Digipak Recommend To A Friend