ROZMAZANI - HARD TIMES
ROZMAZANI - HARD TIMES
Polish wizardry, elegant and manic
It can’t be easy being Rozmazani but hey, they manage.
“We are 250 km apart, connected by the Internet, music, Logic Pro X and sound recording devices. So during last year we see each other 3 times and record about 30 songs. We record separately, remotely, we create in two different worlds. Woytek is synthetic, EBM, electro, I am smeared between industrial, alternative rock and jazz and classic sucked with ... dad's milk. The result of the cooperation is electronics with broken drums, a raw piano standing out from the synthesizers and dirty bass. All this is embellished with polyphony singing.”
‘Hard Times’ blows cobwebs away with a studied ferocity. Trudging in circles over a simple beat, bathed by a simple synth wash and idling, smoky vocals and it struck me immediately as a distant cousin of KaS Product, which you know always has to be a good thing. There is a sorrowful reality here, while the furtive ‘Zamykam Oczy’ inches along, a creepy dance shadow. ‘L.O.V.E’ billows with a fuller, gracious poppy sensibility.
‘Bezgłos’ is a mildly vengeful machine, shaking brightly as the vocals nosedive into the middle, the blearier ‘Jeziora Nieskończone’ attractively skewed, distant vocals advancing over a spiky synth carpet. ‘Unspoken Words’ seethes and spins beneath sharply salted spoken arrows. Exquisite keyboard-driven beauty appears in the quietly ailing ‘NINe Days Of Falling’ like the inspiring background music of a documentary set to suit your personal preferences.
‘Elementos Der Terror’ is a Testículo cover but I have no idea who they are so obviously have no idea how this tense sputtering affair compares. ‘Brylanty’ seems to be sedate coldwave but with genuine feeling and a cinematic flair, as the strangely crackling ‘Oddalenie’ reminds me of the great Guesch Patti. ‘Ciężar’ wanders pleasantly, a touch more mainstream than the rest,
‘Thoughts Speak To You’ is interesting, essentially being an alternative replicant ‘Unspoken Words’! Cutely curdled. ‘Szklana P’ is swish dance mischief and they depart with the fidgeting ‘Ostatni Taniec’ bringing an enormously impressively, richly varied album to a crafty, moody close.
If you can’t find something to grip you here see a doctor!