The four beautiful sound-sculptures of his 'So Nice EP' for Netlabel Audiotong are nonpoint memories of a hot summer in the country, or, if you’re facing the artwork, at the seaside.
Opening track 'So Nice' is made from looped and layered acoustic guitars. Tomasz forces his samples to cough and stumble without digital clipping, introduces single chords and adds harmonic patterns. Every now and then, simple melodies can be heard until they fade back into the delay. There’s a strong sense of melancholia in the composition but due to the loose sound design, 'So Nice' never gets too florid or kitschy. 'Snow' at number two is quite similar, though Toms’ influences become a bit more evident. The straight loop makes you think of certain Krautrock-bands, another comparison might be the early music of Marsen Jules. The track is strong but unfortunately far too short. Often I catch myself to wish that the music lasts, but this time two minutes really really ain’t enough.
'Tender' sounds different to the first two songs. Bednarczyk explores the possibilities of Electroacoustic improvisation and plays around with smooth sinus tones along to reverberated scraping and rasping. But his field-recording are a bit too evident to bear a secret and too unobtrusive to catch your attention. Final composition 'Love' closes the EP with a dubby and crackling good-night farewell. With deadbeat Rhodes and delicate filtered synthesizers, Tomasz Bendnarczyk closes ranks to artists like Pole and Jan Jelinek. No big harmonies, still a pleasant last dance.
(Sven Swift,
earlabs.org)
released October 29, 2006
written and produced by Tomasz Bednarczyk
guitar sounds on So Nice by Tomasz Bien (At Home)
photo by Cezary Stolecki
Wroclaw, Poland, July-August 2006