"The third and the best album" by the Warsaw-based duo Mateusz Franczak-Miron Grzegorkiewicz known as Giorgio Fazer, is called Gdy rozum śpi. This is not my assessment, it's what the artists stated on their own. After some impressive experimental music-infused poetry on Gorzki to chleb jest polskość and 2020's Odarci z godności, the duo is back with yet another mark on Polish music.
The artists are known for their poetic expression; they include recited poems all over their music and one could argue that the improvised guitar and electronica sounds around them are only a background, an experimental arrangement to extend the poetry's meaning. This time the poetry is represented by what is called "a mysterious voice on the tape in a found dictaphone", a voice of a man who is clearly delusional and follows some kind of borderline mad conspiracy theories. The voice samples open and close the album. The artists comment that "in the stories we found, we discovered the spirit of our times - the progressive, overwhelming madness" so their goal is to tame it by closing it in the form of music.
It is unnerving, especially that the album's title Gdy rozum śpi translates to the first part of Franciso Goya's masterpiece's title The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters. One can only wonder what will eventually happen, in the reality around us as well as in the music while going through the album. The improvised sounds create a calm but psychedelically complex soundscape that is only made more attractive when the dreamy vocals appear and even more poignant when it gets swallowed by industrial noise in Czas decyzji.
Gdy rozum śpi costs 8 EUR (1000 JPY).
Check: Czas decyzji
Country: Poland
Genre: psychedelic electronica
Label: mAtter
