"This giddy avant pop affair is rather more avant than pop, with a large backing band of musicians steeped in the stylings of early 1970s psychedelia, mutant prog, free jazz saxophone solos, slinky blues (particularly on “Red White And Blue”) and moody spy soundtracks in the vein of John Barry’s score for 1965’s The Ipcress File. “Last Exit To Lublin” has a spoken word interlude in which the Cold War language of such films is remapped for the era of Brexit: “Papers, please/How long have you been in the country?/And how long do you intend to stay?/Come with us”. The kitschiness of Barry’s music is stripped away to reveal its original purpose: the sound of a very English paranoia." - Dickon Edwards, THE WIRE
Myzlkypop gives us with “a work of fiction pre Pandemic, pre Referendum” where avant-pop from Zappa to Ze Records shines through this meticulously crafted song cycle, played on vintage instruments and uniquely voiced by Sylwia Drwal in an entirely European voice that is cliché free and commands the song.
Many catalysts - not least spending decades as a gun for hire writer/ musician since the heady days in Detroit working with Was ( Not Was) until I could resist no longer and decided to do my music my way with zero compromise or commercial consideration. Kiedy Wilki Zawyja? When Will The Wolves Howl? - Mick Somerset June 2021
"This feels like you’ve pushed past bric-a-brac and moth eaten furniture at some market in an obscure French village to shuffle through old trash 70s vinyl to discover a lost, unheard, psychedelic masterpiece. One with all the mystery of a forgotten time and place but one strangely undiscovered, a lost continent of … well I’m not sure what, but it’s beautifully weird and wonderful.
I’m writing this on Halloween, how perfect. An album that reeks of real Gothic, damp dark and macabre, not faux Primark Goth fancy dress and pumpkins but genuinely unsettling. It could sit alongside any Giallo – Italian noir horror – without discomfort. I could run this behind The Wickerman and get a proper sense of what was going on - raw buzzing, not folktronica but something much more unsettling with added hormones and creepiness. Like Jodorowksy’s Holy Mountain relocated to a dark and nocturnal Eastern Europe.
But this is a record with spit and polish, beautifully composed and produced: clearly crafted with love and attention, but built on shifting sands. It travels from brittle funk, somewhere between the body movement of the Contortions and peak madness Ornette Coleman, to wash up gently on Nico’s Desert Shore. Enmeshed in there is mutant soul, David Axelrod on a sabbatical and oddly Gregorian incantations. A voice from another dimension glimpsed through dark veils, I feel I should be burning some esoteric oils and throwing flickering projections onto walls.
Past worlds aside this is a future we could be turning our backs on… I wish everyone could have played this record before the referendum, we wouldn’t be pulling up the shutters."
Stephen Mallinder
credits
released October 1, 2021
Michael Somerset Ward - keyboards, electronics, percussion,
electric and acoustic woodwinds
Sylwia Anna Drwal - vocals and narratives
with
Simon Lewinski - guitar, keyboards,
Philippe Clegg - bass guitar, Jarrod Gosling - drums, mellotron,
Peter Fairclough - drums, Charlie Collins – percussion,
Matthew Bourne - piano, Maartin Ornstein – tarogato,
Peter Rophone - bass guitar, Beatrix Ward-Fernandez - castanets,
Cath James - viola, Wolfgang Seel - vocals,
Milan and Maja - voices
Discus Music was founded in 1994 by Martin Archer. The label releases leftfield rock music, free jazz, extended songform,
electronics, improvised music, and other sounds which defy categorisation.
EU customers! Your purchase will be shipped to you from within the EU. No unexpected import charges!...more
supported by 15 fans who also own “Kiedy Wilki Zawyja? - 118CD/LP (2021)”
Is it free jazz? Is it metal? Is it industrial? Answer: Yes. And it's all excellent.
The fact that they manage to sustain interest in the lengthy final track, while playing this style of music, shows how talented these musicians are. arbitify