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Written in fRoots issue 337, 2011


R.U.T.A.
Gore
Karrot Kommando KK39 (2011)

A collaboration between Polish rootsters and four of Poland’s leading punk vocalists, spitting angry lyrics from the folk tradition drawn from archive collections and recordings, rages by the poor peasants against their feudal oppressors: “songs of rebellion and misery, 16th-20th century” as the album’s subtitle translates. Punk’s ordinary old guitars, bass and drumkit are substituted by wild abrasive sounds from entirely acoustic folk and medieval instruments played, under assumed names, by members of various folk-revival bands including Warsaw Village Band, Mosaic and Rivendell.
     R.U.T.A., the latest project initiated by Warsaw Village Band prime mover, percussionist and radio producer Maciej Szajkowski, stands for “Ruch Utopii, Transcendencji, Anarchii” – ‘the movement of utopia, transcendence, anarchy’, or alternatively “Reakcyjna Unia Terrorystyczno Artystowska” – ‘the reactionary terrorist-artistic union’. The album (whose title comes from the line “Co gore?” – ‘what’s burning?’) and live band’s energy show signs of creating a folk-crossover stir in Poland; whether being shouted at in Polish will appeal abroad remains to be seen.
     In true punk fashion the tracks are brief - averaging well under two minutes, the whole album only half an hour long - and fiercely unrelenting, a matter of short riffs of churning bowed and strummed strings, banging baraban (bass drum) and tishing cymbal rather than melody. The closing tracks - a paean to Jakub Szela, leader of the 1846 peasant uprising known as the Galician Slaughter in which a thousand nobles were killed, and a Warmian forest workers’ song fantasising about getting their own back on the lords and stewards – are followed after a pause by two unlisted 1950s field recordings of women singing, robustly but much more sweetly than the rest of the album.

www.karrot.pl

© 2011 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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