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| Maciek Pysz - Guitar |
I was at an advantage last Wednesday (22/05/2013, The Forge, Camden) at the album launch of Maciek Pysz's new album 'Insight'. This was music prepared for those of us who could open the gates of our conscious minds and let the music flood in. If that sounds pretentious then I don't mean it to. There are times in anyone's life when they are receptive to this kind of music, whether in moments of acute loneliness, tender euphoria or when simple exterior influences collide like alcohol (just enough) and the company of others that are intent on the same purpose.
As I drew, the concentration was so focussed on the minutiae, the furrowed brow of Yuri Goloubev (Bass) or the distinctive bottom lip of Asaf Sirkis (percussion), that you block out all other reasoning. It leaves the mind unguarded and without the usual gatekeepers of reality. It is similar to the key of Abstract Art, and it no surprise that Maciek Pysz cited Mark Rothko as an influence for one of his tunes, 'Maroon'. Of course there are many ways to experience Abstract work, and instrumental music has much in common with this genre. We can understand where Abstract work is placed in history, its sense of time, the story behind it or we can open ourselves up and just experience.
So because my concentration was so taken with the physical form of the 3 personalities on stage, this left the music unabated and it poked and prodded my exposed memories and feelings.
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| Yuri Goloubev - Bass |
In the margins of my sketchbook I write notes that are streams of personal connections. For a change I'm going to reproduce them here in their entirety (virtually unedited) because it is only fitting for an album launch titled 'Insight'.
Those Days....Cascading rubble and dancing water droplets on the finest of Autumn branches. Galloping Sirkis, smacking brushes like the whip against a gypsy horse's rump.
Blue Water.....Rapid fire, a bullet volley, a kamikaze fighter flowing overhead over rolling waves, crash, it is finished, it stops.
Amici....Slow and warm conversation, snatches of phrases. This is one hell of a complicated friendship.
Lost in London...Dropping keys in a hollow hallway, accidentally kicking a chinking beer bottle as you walk alone in an underpass.
Insight....Running thoughts, a fartlek of ideas, starting, stopping, starting again. Pysz dancing then. They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Positive, then very intense. Impossible to keep up.
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| Asaf Sirkis - Drums |
Huge sound of applause. Goloubev piercing eyes. A lightness from Pysz, a trick really, the web looks brittle but its still flexible and sticks. The mind plays games.
Moody Leaf....Beautiful and dark, cinematic. Almost a shame to have Sirkis join this party.
Recuerdos de la Alhambra....Photographers duelling in audience. Beauty fuelled by itself.
Tangella.....Sirkis rolls back cuffs and plays like enormous pair of chattering false teeth. He's slapping my bum.
Under the sky....Yuri Goloubev has a habit of slacking his jaw to one side. Playful now. Many of the tones are dictated by YG. Playing French cricket not a Bass, croquet perhaps. Joy of something, somewhere or someone. Yet there are thunderclouds over there and the feeling you have of being lost.
Dedication....Tone dictated by Pysz.
Yuri Goloubev is the breath you take and Maciek Pysz is the words, just like they sound..UPBEAT....the mechanics, a thousand different ways to speak a vowel or the permutation of letters. Asaf Sirkis, the memory, the scratching in your head that tells you which tap to turn on to feel the power flow through your body.
Now you know the stuff that's rolling around my head and I hope the notes aren't too disparate to be incoherent. But it seems an apt way to describe the way in which the the audience were asked to drop their guards and let the music roll in. If you want to find out if it works for you, or if you want to let Maciek Pysz tread his delicate feet through your mind then follow this link -
Maciek Pysz - Insight on iTunes.
AL.
