They'd just released an EP and already released their debut full-length album, Sawant. They've just released the album, and they're already working on another one. Wrocławskie Kielichy have abandoned the safe waters of neofolk and set off for uncharted seas. Where will they end up? Do they even know? Two weeks before their festival debut at the OFF Festival in Katowice, I managed to talk to the band in Kraków. It was a warm summer evening when we sat by the Vistula River and talked about what's Gothic about their music, what a savant is, and what will be their biggest challenge before presenting themselves to the general public at OFF.
In the Middle of the Sea
ŁŚ: In January of this year, your EP Punkty płonące ("Burning Points") was released, featuring the song Morze czarne ("Black Sea"), with the lyrics: "Let us sail on ships woven from dreams and search for new seas" and "we must finally destroy something to create some new places." And in June, you released your first full-length album, Sawant ("Savant"). Is this album the destination you've been sailing to, or are you still focusing on exploring the old places?
Adrian Szczecina: This text wasn't written with the intention of creating a narrative about our work. Honestly, I simply wanted to highlight some real-life topics. It's also a fun fact that this song was written after we wrote Sawant. So it's not like this album is going to define us for the next few releases. We're constantly allowing ourselves to explore, to find these new places.
ŁŚ: So, like in that song, you don't have a specific port of call?
Aleks Ciekalski: No, there's no conclusions, and I think we've come to terms with that. Our work is another example of how a journey is more important than its destination.
ŁŚ: But you said this album is a bit different musically.
AC: Yes, of course, we've gone a bit further on this album, and on the new release we're working on now, we're going to even different places. But it's not something we strive for at all costs: to change just for the sake of changing. It's more of a natural evolution. We live and experience new things, we listen to new music, we meet new people, and that's what pushes us to go somewhere else musically as a band and as a collective.
AS: Our tastes are changing, and so are our capabilities: we have more instruments now. No, we're not afraid to explore. What I'm also excited about is that we all like this element of destroying the old style. I suspect each of us derives satisfaction from having had to leave neofolk and that we're now on the high seas.
Mikołaj Uchman: This material wasn't created linearly either; for example, some of the songs on this album were written even before the release of the first EP.
AC: For example, Myśliwy ("Hunter"), which was completely rearranged. In the first version, it was a very, very neofolk song: all the instruments and rhythms were very neofolk. We rearranged it for this new version of ours, a new image, so to speak.
MU: Only the lyrics and chords in the chorus remained.
ŁŚ: Adrian, you said that the lyrics of Morze Czarne don't refer to your work, but listening to you now, I think they might.
AS: When writing this, I wasn't trying to create a narrative that would tell the listener what would happen to the band, what they could expect. Looking back, maybe it did, but that wasn't the intention.
ŁŚ: See, I was fooled; I automatically read it as a manifesto. You're heading somewhere, though. Can you briefly say where? Do you control it in any way, or do you just go with the flow?
AS: There's a certain aesthetic we have in mind. In a way, we wanted to abandon this crescendoing post-rock in favor of more primitive no wave, but it didn't quite work out.
MU: There are elements like that, but they've been embellished with other influences. No wave is very primitive, very rhythm-based, very dissonant.
AC: And that's why it's similar to neofolk in its formula. It gets exhausted very easily. It's good for an EP or two, I think. For us, it would quickly become monotonous and boring. So, despite that initial intention, we quickly abandoned it and realized that we simply needed to follow our natural flow. And then compositions appeared again that had a more extended structure, a broken meter, something that didn't resemble no wave at all. So I guess the conclusion is that it's completely out of our control, and that it's a good thing.
AS: On Sawant, in the last track, Schody wężowe ("Snake stairs"), there's already a slightly Middle Eastern feel to it. I think this foreshadows our next release, which, however, we don't know when will be released yet.
AC: So this element of absurdity, that everything is out of control and yet it's okay, is alive within us.
AS: We have to like the music we make. I guess that's the conclusion.
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| Kielichy at the beginning of 2026 |
ŁŚ: You just released a new album and you're already planning the next one?
AS: Well, it's all happening naturally. The production process for the last album was also quite drawn out. We recorded the material in April last year, but the entire process of overdubbing, mixing, and mastering didn't finish until winter.
ŁŚ: I'll go back to Morze czarne, because I won't deny that this song made an impression on me. On the first EP, you had Bałtyk ("Baltic Sea"), on the second Black Sea, and when I looked at the tracks on the new album, I was surprised there wasn't any sea among the titles. What is it about the sea that makes it such an inspiring subject for you, Adrian?
AS: Since I was a kid, I've been incredibly passionate about the sea and sailing in general. It's a bit absurd, because I'm from the mountains, but at least I live by a lake now. As for Morze Czarne, I feel like this song captured the ambiance of the end of holidays at the Baltic Sea coast for me. The atmosphere of late August. Morze czarne, on the other hand, is a shared memory of ours. Two years ago, we went on a great road trip through the Balkans and spent a wonderful, very cleansing evening by the Black Sea. On a symbolic level, the sea always reminds me of a very vast unconscious layer, and the lyrics I write often work more on the basis of associations, a bit like dreams. The famous word "onirism" often comes up when someone describes our music. So, for me, the sea also symbolizes what these lyrics stem from.
ŁŚ: And "black sea" doesn't even have to be the name of the sea, just its description.
AC: It's not really a toponym.
MU: Well, we had a debate about whether it was the right title, but we decided that it's actually a term that could describe the sea, especially since Adrian draws such a dark landscape in this piece.
We Are All Savants
ŁŚ: You released your first full-length album and titled it Sawant. I admit, I had to google it, but now I know it's either a term for someone who is exceptionally gifted, or it could be the name of a medical condition. Specifically, the very type of autism most often portrayed in movies, like "Rain Man." Who is this savant for you? Where did that title come from?
AS: You know what, I think we're all savants in a way, no matter how that sounds. For me, at least, this savant is a story about us, too, a new name for us at the moment. Because we all have problems in life sometimes, sometimes we struggle with things. But music is the place where our sensitivity, which often causes us a lot of problems, finds its voice.
ŁŚ: There's also something in your work that really catches my eye: the use of religious symbolism. I even have a list: in your songs, there's hell, the gates of hell, heaven, and an angel, although I don't think there's a devil, but I might have missed it. A man hanging from a tree appears about twice, there's a crown of thorns, the number 7. And the chalices ("kielichy") themselves are also a powerful religious symbol.
I wonder if this is intentional, because it adds the right atmosphere and a certain Gothic feel, or maybe it's more a result of the fact that such references simply appear so frequently in our culture?
AS: I've never deliberately used religious symbols in my lyrics to create a certain atmosphere. I think it's more because of our culture and how emotionally and symbolically charged those symbols are, that they can be interpreted in different ways. I really like that. I approach it in a somewhat Jungian way, in that they're often cool symbols for describing the various transformations taking place within us. Plus, I feel like this religious nomenclature fits Sawant because our music is ritual music. At least as we experience it, as we enact it. Music that leads to some kind of transformation.
We often base our songs on a single change of sound, which we build over a long period of time, which encourages falling into a kind of trance. I feel like the use of religious language further emphasizes this.
MU: I associate our music with a religious experience. This lyrical style stems from that fact rather than from any Gothic inspirations, which, don't get me wrong, we also have. But I don't know if you would describe our music as related to, say, the Gothic subculture.
Bartosz Grygielski: We all draw from this kind of mysticism, I think, more as a way of coping with our sensitivity. We draw on symbolism, which allows us to process all of this somehow.
AC: And I think there's also a lyrical parallel between the savant and religious nomenclature. Because it's so oppositional: the savant, this beautiful part, just as we have in the sphere of sacrum, is opposed by certain degeneration. Something sinful, something simply human. I think they go hand in hand.
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| Sawant features poignant illustrations by Daria Izworska |
ŁŚ: You chose Puste niebo ("Empty Sky" but also "Empty Heaven") as the single from the new album, and I'm wondering if a song with such a telling title is some kind of manifesto of your worldview?
AS: You know, to a certain degree. I think strong religious fundamentalism creates a strong dichotomy: something is either white or black, there's nothing in between. And this song is a bit about either you're on that peak and above there's only sky, or you're somewhere at the bottom and there are those lowest valleys. The second part of the lyrics is about how you can escape into a fantasy where everything is wonderful and beautiful. But ultimately, it turns out to be just a dream, some kind of misplacement from reality. So it's a bit like that, but I wouldn't say it's a manifesto. You know, something organic happened here, and the lyrics simply came about while I was composing the song.
ŁŚ: Earlier, you mentioned Jung, the subconscious layer. Does that mean you write lyrics this way? Through a stream of consciousness?
AS: It often happens to me that I have an association that seems very apt and fits the song nicely, and the rest is created around that. Most often, however, the melodic layer comes first; I capture its atmosphere, and associations flow in.
We don't go below a hundred decibels.
ŁŚ: Since we've discussed the lyrical layer, I have to ask about the genre. Do you see yourselves at all in the broadly defined post-rock genre? Because there are more guitar-based, more noise-based pieces on the album, but is that something that inspires you at all?
AC: To a certain extent, for sure. Because if you're broadening the definition of the genre so that you include us, we can say that bands like Swans or Godspeed You! Black Emperor are also included.
Michał Warzecha: The problem with post-rock is that the term now denotes a niche. When I hear "post-rock," I immediately think of bands like Explosions in the Sky. It used to be a broader term, but now I associate it only with its third wave. Even though post-rock was initially meant to transcend the classic rock formula, which is a really interesting thing. Bands like Slint, Talk Talk, and probably Mogwai, were very interesting, but then I get the feeling that... if something after, say, 2010 is tagged as post-rock, I already know what to expect.
So now post-rock means... well, copying Tides From Nebula. I kind of regret that the genre has closed itself off to experimentation.
AC: It's like post-punk now. The name of the genre has changed its meaning. When a band says they play post-punk, it means nothing to me.
ŁŚ: You're playing at the OFF Festival in three weeks. Have you ever played at an event of this scale?
MU: I think the only festivals, if you can call them that, we've played at so far were Muzyczna Jesień and wrOFF (the showcase), but they're not the same. Those were weekend or one-day affairs, usually limited to a single club. So you could say this will be our festival debut.
ŁŚ: How did this even happen?
MU: They wrote to us. (laughs) We didn't apply anywhere or anything.
ŁŚ: So what do you even expect from OFF?
MU: We're definitely happy with the slot we got, because even though we're playing on the smallest stage, it's at 10 PM between Black Country, New Road, and Flaming Lips, so you know... great!
AC: Yes, but the format and timing will be a challenge for us. We'll have 30-35 minutes for the set itself. And our main goal when we play a concert is that we like to stretch these formats and have fun with these songs and give ourselves time. Here, we have to really condense the material and focus on hitting the mark. I don't want to say we'll do a medley, because that's not the case.
AS: We'll probably play two or three songs in those 35 minutes, just to give them time to fade in, to get the vibe going.
AC: That's our biggest challenge right now.
ŁŚ: You'll probably be drowned out by the Flaming Lips, who will be soundchecking right next to you.
MU: But we play pretty loud! (laughs)
AC: We don't go below 100 decibels. (laughs)
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Kielichy will play at OFF Festival on 7 August at 22:35.
The interview cover includes the band picture taken by Daria Izworska.
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