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Written in fRoots issue 287, 2007
 

JAREK ADAMÓW & TRADITIONAL POLISH VOCAL ANSAMBLE ‘SAMI SWOI’
Expedition To The Lost World, Part 1 – Winter
Folken CD 01 (2006)

ORKIESTRA SW. MIKOLAJA & KAPELA ROMANA KUMŁYKA ‘CZEREMOSZ’
Huculskie Muzyki
Nicolaus, no number (2006)

ODPUST ZUPEŁNY
Renesans Średniowiecza
Nicolaus, no number (2005)

Young Polish revival traditional musician Jarek Adamów, whose solo second album was reviewed in fR 252, here combines his singing, melodeon, foot-stamping and bass drum with the voices of four elderly surviving members, one male and three female, of 1980-founded village music group Sami Swoi from the Polish-Ukrainian border.
      They’re not virtuoso singers, but Adamów says he wanted to make something a little like the archive recordings he loves. He points out that today’s listeners might find some of the subject matter strange, but says “I just tried to catch the moment in time which was about 70 years ago, and be as authentic as possible”. Whatever the disputes one might have with the concept and possibility of ‘authenticity’, he has certainly made an album which is more varied and enjoyable than simply recording these singers as is, with no musical input from him; the result is uncondescending, non-flashy and appealing in its warmth, and it brings out the melodic variety and interest of the songs. The release, on his own label, the first of what he plans as a series, has just a simple single-fold booklet; financial resources are probably tight, but an expansion would have been welcome, to include more information about the songs, and also about these four people - photographed for the cover in traditional costume and calf-deep in snow - and their relation to their tradition.

      The new one from key Polish roots activist band Orkiestra św. Mikolaja, the St. Nicholas Orchestra (which also runs a festival and publishes the only Polish folk magazine, Gadzi z Chatki), is very different in sound and performance-orientation of its music, but it also looks toward the border with Ukraine, in fact it crosses it to collaborate with the Ukrainian band Czeremosz, led by traditional multi-instrumentalist, wedding-band leader and regional museum custodian Roman Kumłyk.
      Formed in 1991 in Werchowyna in the Ukrainian Carpathians, Czeremosz plays the music of the Hutsuls, the highland people, most of whom live in the Carpathian part of western Ukraine but who also inhabit the more southerly Carpathians as far as Romania. The St. Nicholas Orchestra drew part of its inspiration to investigate Polish traditions from Ukrainian folk music, so in this album in conjunction with Kumłyk and his band they play Hutsul songs and tunes including wedding music, carols and ballads. A recording of a live concert, Huculskie Muzyki is a big, wild energetic sound of strong male and female voices, abrasive fiddles, growling bowed bass, shrill folk whistles, accordion, fretted strings, ringing cimbaloms and percussion. As with the Adamów project, more booklet information about the material would have been desirable.

      The medievalish group Odpust Zupełny is another guise of the St. Nicholas Orchestra. It plays, with considerable elegance and spirit and a freedom from any attempt at ‘authenticity’, on a mixture of folk, early music and classical instruments, repertoire including 14th-17th century Polish, German, Spanish and French dance tunes and songs, and, translated into Polish, versions of the British traditional Two Ravens and King Henry.
      I can only tell you this, though, by reading the press release; the packaging embodies a decorative but irritating conceit that links titles to their minimal info via a maze, for the solving of which - in the unlikely event of anyone having the time or inclination to bother - the CD has to be not in the player but correctly oriented on the pack’s foam hub. Even then the tracks aren’t in order nor marked with their timings; clearly these people don’t crave airplay.
      The St. Nics are at www.orkiestra.umcs.lublin.pl


© 2007 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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