“Mixing striking melodies to solid e-rock fed of misty moods, Piotr Cieślik succeeds admirably in his first album”
1 Ocean's Loneliness 9:56 2 Journey into the Unknown 6:49 3 Power Crystal 8:38 4 Call of the Ancestors 5:23 5 Comet's Fate 7:28 6 Roaming Soul 7:38 7 Reminiscence of the Journey 9:26 Generator.pl | GEN CD 040
(CD/DDL 55:18) (V.F.) (E-Rock, Berlin and French Schools)
Definitely, Poland has become the land of asylum of the Berlin School style. I shall go even farther; the Polish artists realized what those of France achieved in the middle of the 70's, that is to annex the roots of the Berlin movement in a cosmic vision and especially poetic which made it warmer. So was born the French Cosmic School and so was born the Poland School with the coming of the very serious label Generator. pl. Piotr Cieślik is the last find of the Polish label which seduced the sphere of EM recently with the very beautiful Anunnaki from Piotr Gepert and with the fantastic Let Them Float from Przemyslaw Rudz. If I make a reference to these 2 albums it's because JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN which is the very first album of Piotr Cieślik, drinks of these 2 wonderful albums while bringing a delicate sonic French-style prose.
Waves of a distant intergalactic shore get lost in silky layers perfumed of ether which derive in the cosmos. Some rather discreet arpeggios skip in the background, shaking the first vestiges of rhythms and of Ocean's Loneliness, and of JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN while the synth is stammering some of its nostalgic dreams. And bang! There is not 3 minutes at the meter that Piotr Cieślik shows us of what he is capable. The rhythm is as much fluid as heavy with a continue movement of the sequencer which frees another line in parallel where the keys skip as the snips of scissors of a barber mythomaniac. And always these soft laments of a synth which plunges the atmospheres of Ocean's Loneliness into a kind of Jazz Lounge which the harmonies of a delicate piano do not deny. In a structure in perpetual movement, Piotr Cieślik enjoys confusing our expectations by mixing the aromas of a good cosmic electronic rock with more musical phases that our ears recognize without identifying clearly. And that's the way it is all throughout his album. After a short ambiosonic introduction, the title-track spits a heavy and slow rhythm which skips in a linear movement where dance other sequences and whistle diverse cosmic elements. A fluty synth hums discreetly whereas the rhythm crashes into a beautiful melodious phase in middle-route. This is the moment chosen by Piotr Cieślik to loosens his graceful fingers on a piano which hums a melody as pleasant as jazzy on a rhythmic always so heavy, but which fades in the background in front of this very stylized melodic decoration. The arrangements are very good, and we cannot refrain from making a link with Vangelis in the rather melancholic approach of melodies, as strummed as laid down by a synth.
Power Crystal exchanges its rhythmic structure, a mixture of Berlin School and of ['ramp], for two atmospheric phases fed by a thick cloud of hollow winds. Call of the Ancestors is rather theatrical, kind of Let the Night Last Forever from Walter Christian Rothe, with a rhythmic approach which oscillates in a sneaky way. These last two titles plunge the listener into a mixture of rhythms and ambiences where the harmonious signature is not that much present and is assumed by the movement of sequences. But it's the very opposite with Comet's Fate which is a superb electronic rock. The sequences get in the dance while the synth blows cosmic harmonies worthy of the best moments of Jean-Michel Jarre. This is a great track which dips us back into these atmospheres of very French dramatic sound theater with Soul Roaming, the finale is going to amaze more than one, before that Reminiscence of the Journey nails us on the spot with another great cosmic rock which hides a melody eater of ears and which gives us no other choice that to listen again to JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN; a splendid album where the sound aestheticism, the production and the just balance between the rhythms, the melodies and ambiences make of it my firm favorite and my discovery of 2016. A must because Piotr Cieślik shows that EM is more than a story of knobs, of threads and of preprogrammed recordings.
Sylvain Lupari (January 21st, 2017) ****½*
Available at Generator PL