Robert Piotrowicz - Euzebio LP / DL
Musica Genera / Bôłt Records / Recognition

 

released November 25, 2019

All sounds performed and recorded by Robert Piotrowicz on Buchla and Serge synthesizers at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm 2013/2014.
composed, mixed and premastered by Robert Piotrowicz artwork and photos: Robert Piotrowicz
design and layout: Lasse Marhaug
special thanks: Ocarina Jones and Tomasz Gil
mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin
Produced by Musica Genera

"The body of Euzebio was found all covered in mud. Small devices attached to his limbs were soaked in water but still produced some sounds — neither of speech, nor of the humming spong. Suddenly, when some toad or a redstart slurped, he got up suddenly, and everything started again.”
Mircea Eliade, Euzebio, The Man Who Did Not Exist, Yet Still Shook The Forest

The new album by Robert Piotrowicz does not fit any category. What this multicoloured electronic instrumentation aims to channel is the acoustic experience and energy of the performing musician. As a result of a wide range of creative means used, the narrative language of the compositions bursts with tension and mystery.
The album includes slow hypnotic passages of stone electronics (“To Fleh”), vigorous tempos and circular repetitions (“Euzo Found Gitar”), sprawling artificial soundscapes, back-to-origins ethnicity (ethnical subsoil and elements) liberated from any geographical identity (“Ocarina Wars”), as well as dreamlike minimalism with unpretentious cinematographic traits (“Flares Et Wasser Hole”). Some of these unusual melodic patterns may resemble the corporality of the animal throat rather than any human-created instrument (“Electros Spong”).
Although Euzebio was recorded with synths, the final shape of individual tracks and the album’s overall acoustic image go far beyond any electronic genre. The instruments have not become a goal in itself. They were merely a building block, a tool that helped achieve the album’s extended structure - a diverse whole with rich spatial features.
---
When repeating that what is not perfect, Euzebio is never tainted by a routine. He makes a risky and flamboyant creative gesture without any hesitation, because he knows that if he repeats his gestures long enough, he will succeed. Ubiquitous corporal multiplication is based on a community-shared phantasm which produces an interiorized narrative.
By finding the guitar or creating the spong, impulsive Euzebio avoids being trapped in easy references and does not seek his opportunities in eclectic rock or equatorial drumming. You can almost hear him fleeing, sometimes drenched in code. During their sound rituals, communities competing for the Spong of the Year synthesize a scenery of fictional villages. When dozing off in a shack, Euzebio himself becomes a scenery of the self-transforming body that strives to fill space in an unstoppable, omni-intimate movement.
* * * * *
"Ciało Euzebia odnaleziono całe pokryte błotem. Z przemoczonych, małych urządzeń, które miał przytroczone do kończyn wciąż dobywał się jakiś dźwięk. Ni to mowa, ni to mruczący spong. Nagle mlasnął jakiś kumak, czy horychwistka, on znów się poderwał i zaczęło się od nowa”.
Mircea Eliade „Euzebio, człowiek, który nie istniał, a targał borem”

Powolne transowe pasaże „stone” elektroniki (To Fleh), żywiołowe tempa i cyrkuliczne powtórzenia (Euzo Found Gitar), rozłożyste pejzaże sztucznej dźwiękowej natury, etniczna źródłowość wyzwolona z geograficznej identyfikacji (Ocarina Wars). Oniryczny i bezpretensjonalnie kinematograficzny minimalizm (Flares Et Wasser Hole). Nieoczywista melodyka, którą łatwiej skojarzyć z cielesnością zwierzęcego gardła, aniżeli z konkretnym instrumentem stworzonym przez człowieka (Electros Spong).
Euzebio to album nagrany na syntezatorach, jednak ostateczny kształt poszczególnych utworów i obraz dźwiękowy całości daleko wykracza poza ramy elektronicznej gatunkowości. Instrument nie stanowi tu celu samego w w sobie, lecz staje się narzędziem poszerzonej formuły, budulcem bogatej przestrzennie i różnorodnej płyty.
---
Powtarzając niedoskonałe, Euzebio nigdy nie jest zadrapany przez rutynę. Ryzykując pysznym formatywnym gestem, robi to bez obaw, ponieważ jeśli będzie powtarzał swoje gesty dostatecznie długo, może być pewien powodzenia. Wszechobecne, cielesne zwielokrotnienie, powołuje się na wspólnotowy fantazmat, który odpowiada za interioryzowaną historię.
Odnajdując gitarę, czy konstruując spong, gwałtowny Euzebio wypiera pułapkę odniesienia, nie szuka swoich szans w elektrycznym rocku, ani równikowym bębnieniu. Prawie słychać jak ucieka, czasem obłocony kodem. Walczące o Spong Roku, społeczności rywalizujące obrządkiem dźwiękowym syntetyzują panoramę fikcyjnych osad. Przysypiając w szałasie, Euzebio sam staje się krajobrazem reformującego się ciała, które aspiruje do wypełnienia przestrzeni, nie zatrzymanym wszech intymnym ruchem.

MG V7 : ROBERT PIOTROWICZ "WALSER"
12' LP, 140 gram black vinyl, 260 copies
release date: 14.12.2013

Side A
   Oleh Rami Pohon
      (riverside performance for five / hut blow for any number of participants and one muted mmempekik player)
   Tingal
      (sylvan setup for two)
   Elok Pada Masa
      (nighttime gathering for two and any numbers of attendees)
   Automatu
      (for those who rebuild past events in memory)

Side B
   Udara Rosak
      (for two anxious performers)
   Utara
      (for one who heard everything / small band including strings, percussion and electronics)
   Dimana
      (for any number of pianists and one bad doublebass player)

composed, recorded and mixed by Robert Piotrowicz
all instruments: double bass, piano, percussions, electronics and objects performed by Robert Piotrowicz
artwork and design concept by Robert Piotrowicz
layout by Kama Sokolnicka
collage based on Adam Sikora's photography by Kama Sokolnicka
accompanying texts by Grzegorz Jankowicz, Burkhard Stangl and Jon Wozencroft
mastering and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin
The music originally appeared as a 5.1 soundtrack to "Walser", film directed by Zbigniew Libera

The new album by Robert Piotrowicz Walser is a reiteration of the artist's composition for the namesake film by Zbigniew Libera where a fictitious Concheli tribe enacts its ritual gestures through music and performance.

Rather than following a traditional soundtrack format where music is written after the film is cut to illustrate the cinematic form, Piotrowicz treats the film music as a point of departure to create an autonomous sound work altogether. While its aesthetic narrative echoes the one that we are submerged into throughout the film, the record's underlying structure and dramaturgy were reconfigured and reworked into a new spatial and affective arrangement. Unlike Piotrowicz's previous works, Walser is predominantly an acoustic album with a nod to his previous projects that imagined fictional music ensembles (such as Rurokura and Eastern European Folk Music Research Volume 2).
The idiosyncratic sound of instruments is a result of multifaceted composition process, which took as its starting point custom-made instrument design (wind, percussive and string), prototyping the music structure and meaning, and composer-led choreography of actors' gestures that took place during the film shoot and in its predeceasing performance workshop.

In the film Walser Piotrowicz's original music score is thus enacted by body of sound rather than by actors on the filmset as it fills up the metastructure devised by the composer. Of course music always influences the way one views a film, but in Walser it becomes a cinematic language of its own kind, an extension of the camera apparatus, an omnipresent observer and narrator that sculpts our experience of watching and listening.

In the album Walser sound returns to its first and foremost dimension, time, and while the storyline is no longer in the foreplan, its immaterial traces persist in the LP structure and narrative, incorporating a myriad of mood changes and dramatic turns. The album is an analogue recuperation of the primal, original sound where music finds a new form of embodiment and occupies a new territory beyond the screen and beyond the image. It is a sensuous body of sound that carriers meaning beyond traditional ways of verbal and pictorial communication.

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MG V2 : ROBERT PIOTROWICZ "LINCOLN SEA"
12' LP, 140 gram white vinyl, 350 copies
release date: 28.09.2013

Side A
   Lincoln Sea Part 1

Side B
   Lincoln Sea Part 2

Composed and recorded by Robert Piotrowicz in 2010-2012.
Performed on modular analogue synthesizer.

design and graphics: Robert Piotrowicz
visual adviser: Igor Krenz
mastering and vinyl cut: Rashad Becker

Lincoln Sea is Robert Piotrowicz's second release in 2013 after the acclaimed 'When Snakeboy is Dying'. 'Snakeboy' opened windows with it's sophisticated weaving of guitar, piano and vibraphone, along with Piotrowicz's more recognisable modular synth work. Praised from the likes of Brian Olenwick (Just Outside), Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes) 'Snakeboy' saw Piotrowicz take a confident leap into new realms of sound. With Lincoln Sea, the potential of Piotrowicz' vision is greatly expanded whilst exclusively focussing on modular synthesis. The result is a dizzying journey into the nature of machines and the elements of natural order that can be coerced out of them.

Comprising of a single long form work split over 2 sides, Lincoln Sea is a complex multilayered combination of sonic architecture and narrative drama. Investigation of sound mass as an architectural form expands the work beyond the exploration of a single instrument resulting in significantly more vast and expansive sound landscape. The management of the electronic matter aligns itself with the logic and even sound world of an orchestra with wailing strings flying amongst the brass-like explosions of the bass. The tension resulting from the pull between the sonic world and the emotional capacity of the electronic microtonal explorations make for one of the years assured releases. On one hand, Lincoln Sea can be perceived as an exhilarating audio experience, one of immense thrills, intensity and a rich sonic experience. With further listens, the intrinsic layers and idiosyncrasies will become more apparent providing further aesthetic experience as one hears new sounds, new corners, new worlds.

Piotrowicz's role as despot composer has created a remarkable release which incorporates an evolving landscape, human gestures, an absence of chaos, the orchestral (and rock?) organisation of sound, the false ends and an extreme combination of scientific/architectural design seeped in abstraction and human emotion.
This is a landmark release from one of Poland's most revered musicians.

Mark Harwood, September 2013

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Snakeboy

NEW ALBUM
MG V1 : ROBERT PIOTROWICZ "WHEN SNAKEBOY IS DYING"
12' LP, 140 gram white vinyl, 370 copies
release date: 27.03.2013

Side A
   The Boy and Animal Mass
   The Bite
Side B
   Formatio
   Pneuma
   Snakeboy Maximus

Composed and recorded by Robert Piotrowicz in 2009, mixed in 2011.
All instruments: modular synthesizer, guitar, piano, vibraphone, software by Robert Piotrowicz.

Design and graphics: Robert Piotrowicz
Visual adviser: Igor Krenz
Mastering and cut: Rashad Becker / D&M Berlin

”When Snakeboy is Dying” is the first album of Robert Piotrowicz in which he deploys a broad spectrum of instruments. Most of his previous published compositions were committed to creating a multilayered electronic sculpture built with analogue modular synthesizer.

Performing on all instruments by himself alone and using a variety of composing methods, Piotrowicz created an album which strikes with internal integrity and organic complexity whilst leaving the recipient with an impression of listening to an ensemble. In terms of tonal reduction and assigned function of individual instruments, the score recalls the spirit of minimalism, however the density and dynamics of narration remains in vivid contrast to such associations. The strength of Piotrowicz's work reveals itself in the complexity of events as well as the rich palette of colours and the mobility of architecture in the overall sound picture. The instruments are organized in careful relations with each other, to build not only the horizontal tensions but the vertical ones as well. The beauty of microtonal constructions is amplified by strong impacts and vitality of electronics. What at first might seem like a fragile recording, with every further second it builds and maintains drama and intensity.

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The Necessary bite

Robert Piotrowicz, a solitary figure on the Polish music scene, is primarily known for his fierce electronic compositions and improvisations of coarse-grainded texture, which hit the music mass with a direct blow. With the new album "When Snakeboy is Dying" he catches us off-guard with electronic and acoustic subtlety of the matter, a mutual weaving of these membranes, which combined form a radical structure. Contrary to a straightforward assault, they bring relentless yet scrupulous intensity. What is at stake here is the intensity of Piotrowicz's unique and idiosyncratic language, which resists comparisons with other vernaculars, but may only admit affinity with a likeminded expression and rigor. Rather than submitting to explicit emotions, Piotrowicz carefully negotiates the space between creation and destruction of the form, and astonishes us with a cunning structure marked with cavernous chasms and turbulences. On the serpent-like path through five musical pieces, the composer lays down his traps, which keep the points of formation and obliteration in disguise. Through this analogue recording Piotrowicz achieved physical and direct rupture, creating a caesura in narration and temperature where even the simple gesture of turning the vinyl disc from one side to another is not a rudimentary act, but a symptom of change in language and sonorous morphology.

The new album maps out a new territory yet on another level - the author concentrates on unveiling much subtler elements, such as piano, guitar, vibraphone, and integrates very tranquil, almost fragile passages, only to crush them down and penetrate with an unexpected raid. His attack is microtonally precise and microscopically flawless. Its prowess lies not in delivering an aggravating punch, but a precise needle sting, or a fine but nonetheless deadly bite. Although Piotrowicz traded fists for subtler instruments, they are all the more capable of intoxicating and unsettling the listener, causing the turmoil inside. The recording reveals a merciless exploration of emotions, there is an ever present tension and attack, a myriad of tantrums and burgeoning undercurrents that seek critical distance from one another. Such complex devices may shake the fundaments of the world of reason, order, and rationality, even though "When Snakeboy is Dying" is an opus of precise musical execution and acute compositional planning.

Instead of linear structures and distinctive pulse Piotrowicz designs a musical cluster, however it does not mean that its rhizomatic shape (in a Deleuzian meaning of this word) is not governed by compositional logic and its own internal rules. Interlacing patterns of individual sonic fibers form labyrinth-like structures and flow in subterranean passages only to erupt again in their full glory. The inspiring paradox of the whole album is that while it does demonstrate a determined formal structure, or rather the entropy of its variables, it resists the memorization. Although we may decipher individual patterns and rigorously defined connections between all five pieces, Piotrowicz moulds the album from pure shapes and sounds, and has nothing in common neither with the amorphousness typical of most contemporary improvisers nor with the shapeless magma of noise.

On the contrary, the album gives the nod to programme music traditions, at core of which lies the penchant for narrative and storytelling. Through the transfiguration of the main protagonist as an allegorical symbol of self-affirmation, enlightenment and individuation, Piotrowicz unveils a story of five different stages of self-formation which correspond to five pieces on the album. Whilst this personal Bildungsroman offers a story of metamorphosis, alienation and perseverance with elements of para-ritualistic initiation, it must be understood as lacking any religious underpinnings. Piotrowicz distills the allegory of borderline existential experience, where the acts of rupture and fissure are crucial to self-knowledge and breaking through to the core of one's being. The possibility of Snakeboy's transfiguration is inseparable from the necessity of the bite. Perhaps it is awareness of the irreversible, which one may not turn away from. In this affirmation of being and becoming, Piotrowicz concentrates on a sharp, clearly defined mass, formed from the universe of disarray, confusion, uneven planes and curves. Saturated with irritation that stems from uncompromising complexity, the album proves that the composer is unwilling to take the easy road.

Lukáš Jiřička, March 2013

 

 

 

 

ambient

AMBIENT: Robert Piotrowicz & C. Spencer Yeh
12" LP single sided, Bocian Records
Robert Piotrowicz – analogue synthesizer, electronics
C. Spencer Yeh – violin, electronics
recorded live april 9th 2011 at Littlefield, Brooklyn NYC by Philip White
Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi and Robert Piotrowicz, photos: Anna Zaradny


Ambient describes something that imperceptibly pervades the environment to the point of barely existing.  It affects us, but we
might not know it.  It controls what we regard as the most basic qualities of our lives, so basic that we consider them
inconsequential, everyday, and normal. The earliest ambient music was likened to furniture.

This is not ambient music. But there are the qualities of ambient music here. The sounds surround and envelop.  Groundwork is laid for assumptions and choices to be made. C. Spencer Yeh claims he works with music, defining his practice as experimentation rather than craftsmanship; organization is the principle mode of engagement. Ambient music implies a treatment as opposed to a performance – an intervention in space.  Robert Piotrowicz works to dominate and reorder space through music. The listener experiences the music through the space: the physical image of music.  Ambient implies a light structure - music as transient architecture.

These two ideas come together: architecture and intervention.  They do not blend or melt together. There is little harmony.  Harmony does not matter. What matters is organization and arrangement, placement and coexistence. Events alongside one another, sounds moving, pieces become distinct, moments fall into each other. We hear time describing space.
- Lawrence Kumpf
Robert Piotrowicz & C. Spencer Yeh "Ambient"
recorded for Unsound Festival NY 2011 in collaboration with ISSUE Project Room


wrestling
Kevin Drumm / Jérôme Noetinger / Robert Piotrowicz - Wrestling
7": Bocian Records, bc 04, Mar 2011
Kevin Drumm - analog synthesizer, electronics
Jérôme Noetinger - electronics
Robert Piotrowicz - analog synthesizer, guitar
Concept of the record, edit and mixing by Robert Piotrowicz.
Recorded at MUSICA GENERA FESTIVAL 2005, 29th May 2005

 

 

split

Robert Piotrowicz / Carl Michael Von Hausswolff - split
LP: Bocian Records, bc 02

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easterneuro

Robert Piotrowicz - Rurokura and Eastern European Folk Music Research Volume 2
7": Bocian Records, bc 01
Wedding side
1. Greek Catholic Stork Boy Choir Of Ozerki Village (Soldiers' Meeting, Autumn 1967)
2. Mołomotki Ocarina Orchestra (Open Air Show, Spring 1928)
Funeral side
1. School Girl Band Of Gromovaya Balka (Performed On 10th Anniversary Of Death Of Emil Cioran)

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G 003 : ROBERT PIOTROWICZ - "LASTING CLINAMEN"
premiera/release date: 29.01.2008
1. clinamen 1a 11:02 [mp3]
2. clinamen 2a 8:41 [mp3]
3. clinamen 1b 11:28 [mp3]
4. clinamen 2b 12:21 [mp3]
composed and performed by robert piotrowicz,recorded on 25.12.2005 and 16.01.2006, mixed on different periods of 2007
mastered by Robert Piotrowicz , all sounds from analog modular synthesizer (Doepfer A100)



Robert Piotrowicz "Rurokura and the Final Warn"

emd.pl/records/004 - released on January 27th 2006.
33 minutes, 4 tracks.
1. The Initial Speech
2. 4th Floor Meeting with Detailed Instructions
3. Last Broadcast of Public Speakers
4. The Final Warn
Robert Piotrowicz: analog synthesizer, electroacoustic devices

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