Rafal Mazur & D'Incise Electro-Acoustic Quintet at Alchemia (08.05)

by Krzysztof Penarski

Among the late occasions to see Rafal Mazur's activity on Krakow's improvisation scene this was the most unusual combining both the electro and acoustic side of improvisation as three different nations on the stage.

Actually the musicians played in the middle of the room, surrounded by the audience, with speakers situated on all for corners of the room making for quite unique sound scene experience (unique for a concert as the 'sourround sound' is now something quite obvious in a home cinema). 

In such events what excites me the most is quite frankly not the music itself but the possibility to see the laptop whizz produce sounds in a way that escape my cognitive capabilities. Ludger would use some kind of touchpad, and he started with magnifying the air-conditioning noise in the room. D'incise, apart from using the laptop would also bow small gongs, use the wooden table, metal plates and other objects. Jonas Kocher's playing was pretty minimalistic, as he would create dark and brooding backgrounds on the accordion. Rafal would keep the touch of the strings lighter and more abstract than usual, utilizing bow quite often, plucking gently, playing the bass guitar like a cello (which was his primarily instrument). The music was quite minimalistic, dreamy-like, somehow hypnotic, exploring different textures. Tomek Choloniewski did a good job of stirring the proceedings every now and then with a sudden cry or thundering drumroll.

Definitely and intriguing performance although with this kind of music-creation it's really different to give any kind of quality evaluation as this music kind of comes firectly from the strenght of the individuals playing, but then gets zen, looses the sense of individuality, becomes this kind of formless, shapeless energy cloud. Which can be as much disturbing as relaxing experience, or a mix of both sometimes.

D'incise - electronics, sound objects
Jonas Kocher - accordion
Ludger Henning - electronics
Tomek Chołoniewski - drums, percussion
Rafal Mazur - acoustic bass guitar


Alchemia. Krakow. 08.05.2011