V/A - One Small Step
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Report from the Moon
"One Small Step" is an album by Warsaw Electronic Festival artists, being a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Moon Landing. The idea was initiated by Grzegorz Bojanek, and the main concept of the compilation was constructing the musical pieces on the basis of a sound sample with legendary words of Neil Armstrong, which he uttered while touching the Moon surface with his foot - "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind". An ambitious and original idea, is then the final effect satisfactory? Indeed, 'satisfactory' seems to be the appropriate word...
First of the "One Small Step" producers, Mikolaj Menes, perfectly fits into the ascetic convention, as he’s been presenting a minimalistic attitude towards experimental music anyway. And so he does in "Just a Fairy Tale", opening the album, being a classic example of minimal techno in highly sterile version. His danceable, pumping loop gets interrupted by Evf with his "Lunar Lander" which unfortunately doesn’t bring in anything thrilling to the album. Simply an eerily poor copy of the most cosmic tracks by Autechre. It goes on slightly better, "NL." by a single-person project, Bionulor, is a sample of sounds in which this freshman producer feels best, musical recycling like Alva Noto or Byetone. "CSM Columbia" by Grzegorz Bojanek, is one that aces up the sleeve on that record. Delicate, melancholic passages of cool ambient transforming nearly into drone, effectively blows us away, alike a dark one, "Glory", by Krzysztof Orluk or full of dreamy pads track "210769" produced by Nmls who grows into one of the best ambient/IDM artists on our land.
DigitalSimplyWorld and Krzysiek Cybulski let down, they seem to have treated the concept of the madley too seriously. There’s evidently a lack of idea in their pseudo-abstract tracks, you can only hear the obvious sample modified in several possible ways. This unfortunately limits these pieces to being just interludes between the neighbouring recordings. The most interesting composition of the WEF compilation is "Bitmap", which, however, may not fit ideally into the rest, but the way in which Yaniki plays around with the pitch effect is trully intriguing. Dark ambient atmosphere, like in the haviest works by Sunn O))) is here presented in "MOON3", yet Jarek Grzesica uses the lowest sounds of synthesizers, not doom metal guitars. The Moon Compilation finishes with astral sounds of Stendek, who sets them together with a slight glitch, making it a perfect epilogue – fans of Anders Illar’s "Sworn" album will be delighted.
"One Small Step" is an overhaul of Polish ambient scene in a pill. The scene narrow and hostile, on which, however, many hopeful projects can be found, that have a chance to win recognition of alternative music fans. Evidently Polish experimentalists run after the best representatives of the stage from all Europe, but sometimes this happens at the expense of losing their own identity copying masters from Raster-Noton or Mille Plateaux. Polish ambient becomes a more and more interesting part of this genre. But I hope it will never turn into its Polish-language substitute.
Tracklist:
01. Mikołaj Menes - Just a Fairy Tale
02. Evf - Lunar Lander
03. Bionulor - NL.
04. DigitalSimplyWorld - Strange Messages
05. Grzegorz Bojanek - CSM Columbia
06. Michal Wolski - Moondance
07. Kim_Nasung - Wondering How.
08. Krzysiek Cybulski - Muun
09. Krzysztof Orluk - Glory
10. Nmls - 210769
11. Vasen Piparjuuri - Uitstralende Lijnen
12. Yaniki - Bitmap 2:13
13. Raskain - w_W_al_k
14. Jarek Grzesica - MOON3
15. Stendek - Mostse
Other articles:
"One Small Step" is an album by Warsaw Electronic Festival artists, being a commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Moon Landing. The idea was initiated by Grzegorz Bojanek, and the main concept of the compilation was constructing the musical pieces on the basis of a sound sample with legendary words of Neil Armstrong, which he uttered while touching the Moon surface with his foot - "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind". An ambitious and original idea, is then the final effect satisfactory? Indeed, 'satisfactory' seems to be the appropriate word...
First of the "One Small Step" producers, Mikolaj Menes, perfectly fits into the ascetic convention, as he’s been presenting a minimalistic attitude towards experimental music anyway. And so he does in "Just a Fairy Tale", opening the album, being a classic example of minimal techno in highly sterile version. His danceable, pumping loop gets interrupted by Evf with his "Lunar Lander" which unfortunately doesn’t bring in anything thrilling to the album. Simply an eerily poor copy of the most cosmic tracks by Autechre. It goes on slightly better, "NL." by a single-person project, Bionulor, is a sample of sounds in which this freshman producer feels best, musical recycling like Alva Noto or Byetone. "CSM Columbia" by Grzegorz Bojanek, is one that aces up the sleeve on that record. Delicate, melancholic passages of cool ambient transforming nearly into drone, effectively blows us away, alike a dark one, "Glory", by Krzysztof Orluk or full of dreamy pads track "210769" produced by Nmls who grows into one of the best ambient/IDM artists on our land.
DigitalSimplyWorld and Krzysiek Cybulski let down, they seem to have treated the concept of the madley too seriously. There’s evidently a lack of idea in their pseudo-abstract tracks, you can only hear the obvious sample modified in several possible ways. This unfortunately limits these pieces to being just interludes between the neighbouring recordings. The most interesting composition of the WEF compilation is "Bitmap", which, however, may not fit ideally into the rest, but the way in which Yaniki plays around with the pitch effect is trully intriguing. Dark ambient atmosphere, like in the haviest works by Sunn O))) is here presented in "MOON3", yet Jarek Grzesica uses the lowest sounds of synthesizers, not doom metal guitars. The Moon Compilation finishes with astral sounds of Stendek, who sets them together with a slight glitch, making it a perfect epilogue – fans of Anders Illar’s "Sworn" album will be delighted.
"One Small Step" is an overhaul of Polish ambient scene in a pill. The scene narrow and hostile, on which, however, many hopeful projects can be found, that have a chance to win recognition of alternative music fans. Evidently Polish experimentalists run after the best representatives of the stage from all Europe, but sometimes this happens at the expense of losing their own identity copying masters from Raster-Noton or Mille Plateaux. Polish ambient becomes a more and more interesting part of this genre. But I hope it will never turn into its Polish-language substitute.
Tracklist:
01. Mikołaj Menes - Just a Fairy Tale
02. Evf - Lunar Lander
03. Bionulor - NL.
04. DigitalSimplyWorld - Strange Messages
05. Grzegorz Bojanek - CSM Columbia
06. Michal Wolski - Moondance
07. Kim_Nasung - Wondering How.
08. Krzysiek Cybulski - Muun
09. Krzysztof Orluk - Glory
10. Nmls - 210769
11. Vasen Piparjuuri - Uitstralende Lijnen
12. Yaniki - Bitmap 2:13
13. Raskain - w_W_al_k
14. Jarek Grzesica - MOON3
15. Stendek - Mostse
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- V/A - Black Snow 2 - the completely different Xmas compilation - 2011-02-04 (Music reviews)
- V/A - Castle Party 2007 - 2008-08-04 (Music reviews)
- V/A - Elektropop.pl - 2008-02-17 (Music reviews)
- V/A - Gloria Victis Vae Victis - 2006-02-04 (Music reviews)
- The Best Of polish Synth vol.1 - 2005-11-08 (Music reviews)
