Going deeper that ever before Laica unveils the absence of melody at the heart of the darkness.

In the last couple of years there have been some very strong moves backwards, for want of a better word. The cassette, once believed to be a dead medium has made a very real return to peoples music collections and upon returning it has bought along some new friends; the cassette label.

Cassette labels seem to have done something to the way we listen to music. People have returned to making shorter albums, albums that you can digest in one sitting. Albums that you listen to in the way that they were intended. From beginning to end.

One of those albums is Kolysanka Do Gwiazd by Synek. A producer from Poland who recently had an album out on the rather fine Rano label and has now returned with a slightly longer affair via Further Records based in Seattle and co run by Chloe Harris.

Kolysanka Do Gwiazd is not easy listening by anybody’s standards, but it does work very well in one of my favourite music listening environments; a dark room, under headphones.

The album opens with Wykoleic 7+ minutes of the very darkest textures, the deepest bass rumbles, crackles, and a sound not unlike a far off storm brewing. The faintest of static rhythms with what could almost be an orchestral swell. All in all Wykoleic smothers you and does not let any light in.

Obloczek follows in much the same vein; a distant whine. More static. Music so heavy you feel pinned to your seat unable to remember how long you have sat there. But then a discernible rhythm in the shape of Elektrowóz. And by this point you know where you are but still you may not be sure when. Oddech has a different feel. It’s the sound of information being passed through long forgotten wires en route to who knows where; its starting point by now long forgotten.

With Kolysanka Do Gwiazd, Synek had made an album with a narrative and a pace all of its own. I’m not sure what it describes but I urge you to see if you can make it out. You may, like me, just enjoy being lost in the dark.

Grab

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Synek – Wykoleic
Synek – ObBoczek
Synek – Elektrowóz
Synek – Oddech
Synek – Proznia
Synek – Metalowy Nozki
Synek – Kolysanka Do Gwiazd