Review Summary: Stars overhead, grass underfoot.
Polish folk act Stara Rzeka’s music channels the power of time passing - retrospective, prospective, and even introspective. It can settle anywhere between ancient paganism to new age mysticism, and there’s always a sense of spirituality wafting through; and, just as there’s no set-in-stone definition of spirituality,
Zamknęły Się Oczy Ziemi doesn’t give any singular, tunnel-visioned approach to discovering it. “Czarna Woda”, for example, feels
long ago - no specific timeframe, really, but plagued by something unknown in the present (perhaps a cataclysmic event similar to an ice age). The guitar line captures a primitivist ambience, with a repetitive, bare-bones composition that never loses focus, and could be the soundtrack for an eon. In contrast, a song like “Ogniste kazania B.B.” has a strange, cavernous intimacy, bound to a specific moment; as sole member Kuba Ziolek sings somewhere between rejoice and lament, the agitated electronics in the background could be stars falling outside the grotto.
Though
Zamknęły succeeds by its sense of pacing - particularly in the longer, zen-like pieces - it has its share of adrenaline spikes. Opener “Nie zbliżaj się do ognia” begins with a sort of blatant and intentionally misplaced energy level. The track jolts forward with rigorous strumming that soon grows menacing, inviting crackling noise through the front and a rapid litany of kettledrums through the back. Black metal ferocity settles into a cosmic groove reminiscent of
Phaedra-era Tangerine Dream, only to melt into layered guitar-spoken folklore atop fuzzy, ritualistic drones. Follow-up “W sierpniową noc” shows Ziolek’s ability to blend strict musicality with a casual wanderlust, like a biologist who’s left academia to study in the forest. In a way, the opener is Stara Rzeka planting a flag, asserting a sense of dominance over a realm that has nothing to relinquish besides colours and sounds.
An album of one-and-a-half hours highlights the importance of cohesion, and whether or not a partial lack thereof is to the music’s detriment. Stara Rzeka’s tapestry of Polish folklore is laced with hints of psychedelia, jazz, raga, and ambient; and while it sprawls, Ziolek is never purposeless. He speaks almost exclusively with acoustic guitar, while many of the other noises seem to drift off in their own spiritual planes. On “BHMTH (czyli historia z wujkiem Albertem)”, it’s hard to tell whether the drum machine and Ziolek’s earthly guitar are forever interlocked, or worlds apart, moving towards each other like astral beacons. 20-minute penultimate track “W szopie, gdzie były oczy” is a saga in its own right, spanning what could be the history of a small, long-forgotten civilization. There’s conflict, as brash saxophone intrudes on the peaceful opening; there’s respite, with the sounds of undisturbed wildlife; there’s folklore, accented by Ziolek’s wordless storytelling via beautiful steel-string; there’s exploration, as a formless clarinet bends, dips, and rises through the wilderness; and, there's war. All of this is to say that
Zamknęły Się Oczy Ziemi is a triumphant work, tethering far-reaching grasps at the unknown to the ground we stand on and the events that precede us.
