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La Ciutat Et Tu surrounds the listener with evolving percussive transformations in timbre. The compositions have a circular unwinding quality, never abrasive and utterly hypnotic. Tomasz Krakowiak is a Polish-born percussionist now living in Toronto, Canada. Having collaborated with the likes of Kaffe Matthews, John Oswald, Phil Minton, Otomo Yoshihide, Gert-Jan Prins among others it is safe to assume he is an experienced electro-acoustic improviser yet the record does not appear to be a simple a document of selected performances.
As a composer, Krakowiak's strength is his ability to transpose percussion recordings into beautiful meditations on abstract textures . The opening piece Bal begins as a wobbly modulated bass drum tone cross-fading into shimmering cymbals which reveal complex phase patterns. The title track explicatively sounds "wet" despite its rolling grinding-sanding elements; perhaps an auditory illusion to suggest an imaginary watermill. Sink spans eight minutes of repetitive metal-on-metal sawing, which is strangely a pleasurable listen. That said, the entire record is masterfully recorded and mixed so that the listener can hear the resonating complexities in the denser drone works such as Aigua Per A" and Diners Per N without ear fatigue.
Review by Derek Morton
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