Category: Poland Special

 

 

hello. Thanks for this small interview and taking part in the last part of our Poland special. Let’s talk about the beginning of your label. When was it founded? Who did it? Tell us something about the founder/owner of it and about the reason for doing it please. What was the first release and what‘s the story behind it?

DRVMS Ltd.: Hey, thanks for invite to this project Jurgen! Im really happy that I can tell some words about DRVMS LTD. for Gramofonowa. & NovaFuture 🙂 So, first of all label was born with first release in 2017. I have founded this label because (as in Lost In Ether Rec. which I was running with Dorota Smyk few years ago) i wanted to promote „unknown,fresh producer/artists places” through music made by people who – as I can say – are not from „the top” of our techno shelf but through their interesting, original style and persons as they are personally too. So I think DRVMS is like home and any of new artists with his good vibe and healthy attitude to techno industry is part of label family. It’s all about the music, not the fame. For example first release was launched in April 2017 and it was EP from A Thousand Details „Overtime EP” and before idea to release Gustavo’s music on DRVMS we speak a lot about industry, music etc.

International Day Off: Me (Gary) and Maciej together organized events in our city. During that time, we invited to Poznan, among others: Cristian Vogel, Minilogue, Konrad Black and Jacek Sienkiewicz. After five years of work on the series of events, we changed the concept of the brand and our label started so. The first release was established a lot earlier. The first artist was our friend, whom we especially respect as musican. – Jurek Przezdziecki. His release “Classicalism EP” icncluded also Sebastian Mulleart and Jacek Sienkiewicz remixes. It was a big thing to us but we felt that would be a good start for the label.

Recognition: It was back in 99… I just recorded a few dozens of tracks in 97/98, so naturally I wanted to release it. There was no electronic music record labels around, so i did it by myself. It was my first album “Recognition CD”, followed by Recognition EP – first vinyl EP on my label. I’ve received very enthusiastic feedbacks from all around the world, so… I had a good start for next releases.

 

Please describe your music style. Is there a special image you want to create for the label? What’s the main idea behind it? Do you have a specific optical idea and work with special graphic designers?

DRVMS Ltd.: There is no specific style in this label I think, now after nine releases I can confidently say that image of label lives by itself, yes im making selection in demos of course but very lot of music that is sending to label is very inspiring for me and im moving it forward so after few listening of new material and when im decided to start cooperation with artist I have some images which fits to this music and Im putting this images on covers and whole graphic designs of DRVMS. Im making all graphics by myself.

International Day Off: We try to release music from the edge of techno and minimal and I can say it’s a very subjective choice. Mayby word „hypnotic” desribies the style the most as result of musical tastes and prefferences. Deffinietly we’re not going to follow the trends and produce some. Dark, drone, techno stuff. Maciej is taking care of the visual side. We designed the covers has to be made form one certain type of paper with only black slolid graphics on it. The labels are also stamped by us.

Recognition: At the beginning I was focused around my vision of detroit techno but it is basically just what I feel and how I feel electronic music in general… or in particular moment of my life, hard to find a specific genre. Idea is to release what I want & when I want. I mostly work with my good and talented friends as a graphic designers, sometimes I’m doing it alone sometimes I have an idea for a cover or vinyl label which is usually very simple and black and white – sometimes there is no design at all !

 

Narciss – 12681 (DRVMS Ltd.)

 

How do you select the artists and tracks? Please give us a overview about the main artists & successful releases.

DRVMS Ltd.: I’m searching and exploring always when I have time for this, but honestly Im receiving loads of music so even now there is really big „database” on my email of new sounds which I must to check in free time and now I have also new podcast project which im running with my friends called: „Intramural” and by this project im exploring some really nice fresh names (of producers of course) that I didn’t hear before. Tracks selection? hmm, I’m trying get tracks from artists which will build EP with tracks like „dancefloor” killers and those melancholic intro’s, outro’s or even slowly building mixes. But truly…there is no rules in choosing.

International Day Off: We appreciate cooperation with Polish all our artists. We have really talented people here such as Michal Wolski, Jacek Sienkiewicz or Jurek Przezdziecki, already considered pillars of the Polish club scene and many young heroes whom we invited to the label: Fisherboyz, Attache, Piotr Figiel. Some of our releases are made becouse of the fact that really talented people send us their music. We are very proud that we can do some work together. Sometimes it takes months. We know what we want to achieve.

Recognition: I just wanna release my own music and music from my closest friends. That why i wanted to have a label. It’s a small underground label run mostly by …me. I’m receiving many demos everyday but usually doesn’t fit to my profile… or simply have no time and capacity for it. To be honest at the beginning all the records were successful… now it’s more difficult. The biggest “hit” of last years was my “Drifting” album, EP and remixes by Ricardo Villalobos and Roman Fluegel.

 

Michał Wolski – “Diamond” (International Day Off)

 

There is still some kind of „religion war“ if a real DJ has to play vinyl or at least should have the skills to do so. What formats do you release? Was there a certain reason to choose this/these? How do you structure your catalogue (vinyl + same content digitally, vinyl only, vinyl + exclusive digital bundle with extra content etc)?

DRVMS Ltd.: I don’t really like to take my state in this „religion war” I don’t care it honestly, most important thing is to have skill to give people energy from the decks. How you will do it, that’s your business. For now I’m releasing only digital, releasing vinyls in Poland is too expensive, but I think I will make in near future some limited CD releases as well. I don’t have marketing plans etc., label is young and it’s growing up naturally by itself I think, when it will be need I will try to fight for some vinyl releases too, with extra content etc. 🙂

International Day Off: It’s very funny because it does not matter from what you play the music but and how can you do it. Let the crowd to do the rating. We’re doing releases differently: digital + vinyl, digital, or a vinyl only(release 004).

Recognition: It’s not a strictly DJ oriented music… its mostly danceable but sometimes it might be hard to mix… its good for home listening and for the dance floor. Some releases are perfect for warmup some for after party. As I said before I’m just releasing my own vision of electronic music and i don’t care a lot what peoples will do with it, an open minded dj will dig it and use it for sure. At the beginning it was a vinyl label but nowadays it all in digital as well. You are not able to escape it. We have some more listening and experimental sounds coming out digitally only. We had some vinyl only releases but generally 90% from recognition catalog is available in digital. Last year we had an art book + cd with more experimental music by Bartosz Zaskórski and also my album with Max Loderbauer this year we have a beautiful prints made for my digital-only mini LP.

 

Jackname Trouble “Rainy Day” (Recognition)

 

So what are your plans for the future? What’s coming up next?

DRVMS Ltd.: DRVMS V/A 2 x CD maybe 3 x CD release on April 🙂 with lot of interesting music, I think tracks included on this VA will be kind of spectrum and music which you can expect on DRVMS 🙂 s o s t a y t u n e d. Previews will be available soon 😉 At the end I would like to say thank all people that support label and cooperate with label 🙂

International Day Off: We’re also plan to release Jacek Sienkiewicz this year and some surprise from Jurek Przezdziecki. We have a lot of good stuff to realease now.

Recognition: I’m more into experimental / listening music at the moment, doing weird things in my new studio… not many peoples will listen to it I guess. Next releases are not very club oriented. I’ve just released my own mini LP “123418” few days ago. With a chain of varied and modern sounds, after nearly eight years my friend Jackname Trouble is back on the label. Tomek Sroczyński is another long-awaited return on Recognition Records. After his last year’s „Symphony_NO. 1” it’s time for more frivolous sound. His work on the new album lasted for years and the only thing we can say at the moment is that it was worth the wait… more after this summer… thx !

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time we don’t have any interview, films or mixes. We just selected 7 releases by Polish born artists. There are so many good stuff – we just wanted to show that it exists 😉

 

Artist: Melania.   Title: Rimorsum EP   Label: Aufnahme + Wiedergabe   Feature: click here

 

Artist: Rraph   Title: TK EP   Label: Counter Pulse   Feature: click here

 

Artist: Michal Jablonski   Title: Chiamaera EP   Label: Secret Keywords   Feature: click here

 

Artist: Sept   Title: Direction EP   Label: Voxnox Records   Feature: click here

 

Artist: Violent   Title: Stressful Environment EP   Label: Dynamic Reflection   Feature: click here

 

Artist: Michal Wolski   Title: The New World EP   Label: Nonplus Records   Feature: click here

 

Artist: Piotr Klejment   Title: Underground Perception EP   Label: Illegal Alien Records   Feature: click here

 

 

 

 

Hello Dorota – nice to have you for a short interview about Vis Maior and your artist rooster. You are a part of the project Vis Maior. Tell us what is it and what is the concept and the artists behind the projects?

Hi, thank You for invitation to this interview. Vis Maior is a new collective which I create with my friends. Pawiel Wlatkowski and I are responsible for organisation and promotion as well as event production. Michal Jablonski, Violent, Sienn and Sept are the artists. Guys work very hard, they produce music, they continually play at gigs in Poland and abroad there’re also involved in other activities regarding the collective and scene in general. We are a group of friends who share similar passions and similar perception of music. We want to promote music in many ways: by sharing it with the people via internet, social media and events.

 

Michal Jablonski – “Invite’s Choice Podcast 453”

Sept – “Lost in Ether | Origin Series*”

SIENN – “Lost in Ether | Origin Series*”

 

Let’s have a look at the nights. Do you regularly organize partys? If so, are they exclusively in Warsaw or also in other cities of Poland or maybe even in other countries?

Together with Michal Jablonski we created a project called Niedorzeczne Techno – the open air techno events by the Vistula river in Warsaw. It was like 3 years ago. This year, after a year of break the series was coming back. The first event was held on May 26th. For the opening party we invited one of our favorite artists – VSK with live act performace. All events are free entrance events. We want to share highest quality music and we hope to reach many people in this way.

Some time ago, Pawiel created Bóg Jest w Techno, a fanpage aimed on promoting proper techno sound. Now together with Sept with strong support of other team members they’re organizing events at the highest level, inviting masters of the genre. After the first season we invited many well recognized artists for their debuts Poland. Due to the high range of this entity we were also able to use this as a platform to empower Niedorzeczne Techno.

We’re all very involved in this project. Thanks to this collaborative effort and the effects of it, we decided to create events also as Vis Maior. We think that due to the potential we gained by gathering forces the best is yet to come.

 

At last let’s take a look into the future: What are your wishes regarding Vis Maior and the polish techno scene?

Our activities will expand considerably soon. In fact, my wishes are already in the making. I hope everything will go as planned and I will talk more about it soon. What do I wish for the Polish scene? Surely not to slow down. I think everything goes in the right direction.

 

 

 

 

 

Hello Dorota – nice to have you for a short interview about Lost in Ether and your artist rooster. You are a part/head of the project Lost in Ether. Tell us what is it and what is the concept and the artists behind the projects?

Hi, thank You for invitation to this interview. Lost In Ether is a podcast project, where you can find personal visions and expressions of alternative electronic music.

 

Rommek & Aimee Mullen – “Lost In Ether | Podcast #43”

 

Which international artists/crews have influence on your project “Lost in Ether” and your person? Which criteria are you looking for if you want to sign an arist for the mix series?

It is hard to pinpoint the impact of specific artists or teams influencing the creation of this series. I often ask artists to record what’s inside their hearts, not necessarily what they play in clubs, on a daily basis. Just check Rommek’s podcast, which he has prepared together with his girlfriend. This is a combination of quite experimental music and a live instrument – a violin.

I often choose artists according to my own taste, I invite people who are at the moment interesting to me as artists. There are some less and more famous names, for example VSK, Luigi Tozzi or Citty with his outstanding modular live act.

I also run the Origin Series, which is an attempt to promote Polish artists in country and abroad. There is, among other great things, a brilliant live act by Błażej Malinowski or a mix recorded by Gem.

Dorota, thank you very much for your words about Lost in Ether. We are looking fwd to present your Vis Maior project in the near future as a own part of our Poland special.

 

Błażej Malinowski – “Lost In Ether | Origin Series”

 

Hi. Could you please tell us who you are (who is part of the project) and what the name VFC means for you? When did you form the collective and from where did the idea rise?

Visual Family Collective was created by Michał Gwardys, Jakub Grzeszczuk and Tomasz Grzeszczuk one and a half year ago. Name of our collective illustrates the way we work – meaning for us, there are plenty of people that are co-working with us, just like a family, we help each other to achieve what we’ve planned. Creating group like this took some time. The passion for VJing started with Jakub – he was first of us to become a VJ back in 2013 (his stage name was vj Igraszka). His hobby shortly evoluated into job as multimedia and video artist . One year later his younger brother Tom started experimenting with 2D animation and became a VJ just like his brother. After few months of working together, Tom has taught his friend, from school, Michał some basic skills in animation . Finally in 2015 Michał came up with an idea to create a collective and to start doing VJ as a full time job, as it is today.

 

Visual Family Collective – “Othercult Teaser”

 

For whom did you already realise visual art and what were the intention of these projects?

Although during almost 2 years of our shows we had occasion to work with many great DJ groups and music artists, we have our favourite ones. Vis Maior – a Warsaw based DJ collective is definitely first of them. We made together many gigs with artist like Regal, Boston 168, Cleric and more. It was the first time we did such huge projection (about 50m2). Second one is a Hamburg based group called Othercult. It’s a very solid project that we really admire and are happy to take a part in. We visited cities like Hamburg or Hannover with such artists as Sam Paganini, Marcel Fengler, Par Grindvik, Keith Carnal, Nicole Moudaber and many more. Third group that we love to work with is a Polish collective Technokracja. We really enojy to make gigs with them, due to their unique vibe and a warm welcome!

 

What kind of elements do you use for the visuals? There are teams using old movie sequences or animations etc. …

Our style is based on mixing vintage movie loops with 2D shapes and 3D geometry. Most of our loops are monochromatic, but we sometimes we work in wider colour palette. To prepare our shows we use bunch of softwares such as: Adobe After Effect, Premiere for 2D animations and movie loops, Cinema 4D for 3d geometry renders, Touch Designer for generative 3d animations and Resolume Arena for live shows to mix loops together. Of course we also use hardware such as projectors, LED panels, screens, Roland video mixers and MIDI controllers.

 

What do you use for it? What’s your equipment that you used in studio & for gigs?

see answer above

 

Visual Family Collective – “My Home Is My Castle”

 

Could you please give us a description of the production process? What happens after a client asks you for visualising a track/a gig or whatever?

Each time we start to prepare the show it’s different, and that’s what we really enjoy! However first step is always the same- we try to learn what gear we schould prepare (like projectors or screens etc). Then we visit the place (if it’s impossiible we try to gather all vital information to prepare a special content suited for the place – for instance in Fabryka Porcelany we used vertical screen because it was better for this venue. Frome time to time we also upgrade our own MIDI maps to have better control in mixing loops. Then in the day of the show we come to place projectors and screens. Having done all those steps we are finally able to make some VJing. Usually shows start around 10 or 11p.m. and end about 6-8 a.m. so it’s at least an 8 hour live show. It is really hard not to be exhausted for all night long, especially if you’re performing alone.

 

What are your future plans? Any interesting projects in the pipeline you can tell us something about?

In the future, we are planning to visite some interesting events. We will be back to Audioriver Festival for sure! We really liked the vibe there! But it is not the only place we want to visit again. In less than a month we will be back to France performing for three days with our friend Monsieur Nuage. VJ battle at Interference Festival is another gig we really can’t wait for! This time we’re going to be better prepared but we heard that other VJs will also bring some more elaborate works. There are also many smaller gigs that we can’t wait for but since summer just began we are entering the typical festival mood!

 

 

 

 

 

Hi Blazej, describe your concept please and tell us how the idea came up to your mind!

I have played a few times to silent movies before I begun my project, so I was somehow influenced by it. However, I have to say, the concept of those events was different than my own. I felt the focal point was always the movie, while the music, composed and performed by sometimes renowned and extremely appreciated artists, played a role of its companion.

I twisted the idea around. The heart of my project is the music and the artists performing it. I think that silent movies goes very well with electronic and techno music. At first the project was only about Live PA performances. After a while I started to invite Dj’s as well. The selection of the movies always comes after I invite the artist, it is never the other way around. The music is the most important ingredient in this recipe. I feel movies are creating a better environment for focusing on sounds. They are also a starting point, an inspiration for creating music. And as it turned out there are so many great titles to discover!

This is how the idea was born and how I want it to remain for the future as well. At the very beginning the events were very small and I mostly invited my closest friends to them. After a while the project started to grow and this days I can host some of my favorite artists.

 

“The Seashell And The Clergyman” scored by Głós

 

Please give us some facts about you and your musical influence!

This is always a very difficult question with a lot of possible answers. I was always close to deep forms, especially dub and ambient music, but also I am in love in the club vibe and a much stronger music for body and mind. My taste and influences are evolving over time but they are always close to the core that I described.

 

How do you select movie & artist? What are the criteria to combine both with each other?

Well, when talking about the music layer, I always invite artists that are an inspiration to me. With the movies it is always a bit more difficult. I consider myself more as an occasional explorer than a fanatic. For an event I try to pick several movies with a similar ambiance and character. Sometimes a movie can be 5 minutes long, so I have to find a few of them each time. The inspiration for their choice is the music of the invited artists.

I usually open the evening with my own short Liveact. Afterwards my guest take over the stage. I usually pick the experimental and avant-garde pictures, because I do not want to show the obvious titles here. Since I have been doing it for more than four years now, it became clear to me that in the beginning of XX. century there were a lot of filmmakers that wanted to push the art forward. This is very important for me when searching for the movies.

 

(Blazej Malinowski, THNTS & Głós)

 

When did you start? Is it always at the same venue?

I started Why So Silent? four years ago. From the very beginning it had the same venue – a place called Znajomi Znajomych (Friends of our Friends) in Warsaw. Its manager – Dorota Tomaszewska – always had an unconditional faith in it. Her persistence is actually the reason that the project has been on for such a long time and succeeded in the way it did. She left me total freedom of choice of both artists and movies.

At the end of this season I received some proposals to come with Why So Silent? events to another polish cities or for example to perform in Stockholm. Recently I also presented the concept in Denver with a short Live performance during my first USA tour. So I have to say that the project is growing. However Warsaw is the place where I want to do it as long as possible. As long as people would like to hear & see it.

 

“Un Chien Andalou” scored by Blazej Malinowski

 

You now live in Berlin but your events still take place in Poland. What are your future plans? Perhaps doing it in Berlin too? Which artists and movies are coming next?

I am always asking myself the same question – which artists and which movies are coming up next, in the next 3-5 events? If some venues would be interested in co-hosting the event in Berlin, I am up for it for sure. However since my main focus is in working in the studio and playing Live, I am waiting for someone who would be really interested in working with me.

I am already planning the opening of the next season in Poland. This time it will probably be held in a club and it will turn into a regular club party running until the early hours of the morning. The evening will begin as a regular show and afterwards I plan to invite a VJ that will work with the pictures presented for the past four years. But for now I cannot say much more about the lineup but I think people will enjoy the concept of the night.