Words by Justin Turford
The Polish outfit Siema Ziemia straddle the seemingly opposing worlds of tightly composed electronic music and the uncertain chaos of acoustic improvisation, and they do it with a quite devastating panache. Impossible to define, their music encompasses energies and inspirations from spontaneous free jazz explosivity to synthetic atmospheres; nature versus the machine, production versus organic expression.
Byrd Out are no strangers to identifying and releasing music that blurs genres and the second album by the band, appropriately titled ‘Second’ disassembles raw jazz, breakbeat, grimy mid-90s’ basement techno and even pastoral folk (‘we used to cry’) within its palette of expression. Rarely settling, all of the above may appear in a single track, from a bucolic sunrise to a riot of focussed noise inside of a few minute long track.
Tracks like ‘KDT’ sound as contemporary as anyone in the edgier end of the new jazz scene with its machine inspired drum pyrotechnics by Andrzej Konieczny and hyper-speed sax lines from the lungs of Kacper Krupa as dirty guitars and synth walls punctuate and rage.
First single ‘atlant’ opens with the most atmospheric of cavernous sax and synth intros. It could be a track of its own, heavy ambience for the next Blade Runner movie. But no, it is just an opening chapter to a deep midtempo electro-jazz groover with excellent drums and evocative echoing ostinato keys that build to towering crescendos, the sax a riffing presence throughout. Really great track with a touch of Jon Hopkins’ ‘Open Eye Signal’ about it.
As powerful and full bodied as it sounds, ‘Second’ isn’t a record without deep emotional sensitivity. ‘vulnerabilities’ is a perfect example of the band showing their tender side. There may be a 4/4 kick and their usual surging of energy but the layers of melody, chordal softness and a majestically unguarded sax solo that seems to cry with pain shows an exposed side to their creativity.
‘all those moments’ is another (long) tune with the blues in its soul. Wailing saxophone, minimal bass from Paweł Stachowiak, atmospheric guitar by Fryderyk Szulgit and angular, thunderous toms drive onwards to a moment of fearful darkness - doom meets psychedelic jazz-rock with D&B synthetic buzzsaws. And then as you expect the end, it swerves into a tech-noir looped groove, grinding metallically into the ground like some industrial process. Mad shit.
This album is not for the faint-hearted. Purposefully challenging (to the listener and themselves), the songs always contain something that grabs you. Whether that part remains for long is another thing - the group’s collective spontaneity can’t be taken for granted. Final track ‘see you on the other side’ starts as some kind of druggy Euro-tech groove before exploding into the nearest thing they have to a ‘pop’ tune. Weird pop for sure but compared to the ‘free’ sensibilities of the rest of the album, it is positively radio friendly and at less than three minutes it should be a hit (in some perverse parallel universe)!
They’ll be making their debut at this year’s EFG London Jazz Festival so they’re a big recommend from me.
‘Second’ is a brave and uncompromising record for fearful times. 8.5/10
Released on Byrd Out on 8th September 2023