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Sample Track 1:
"To You Kasiunia" from People's Spring
Sample Track 2:
"Chassidic Dance" from People's Spring
Sample Track 3:
"Who is Getting Married" from People's Spring
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People's Spring
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Layer 2
Interview

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Global Village Idiot, Interview >>

One of the most interesting albums of 2003 is from a country that's barely featured on the world music scene - Poland. It's been a country in change for 20 years now, but there's plenty of music there, some of it ancient - and that's what the Warsaw Village Band has been discovering and bringing to light on their album, People's Spring. They're a young group, ranging in age from 16 to 25, with plenty of energy, many ideas, but also great respect for tradition.

"Warsaw Village Band started in 1997," explained member Wojtek Krzak. "The most important for us is music from Mazovia area, the heart of Poland. There we can find very archaic music, which is our favorite style. Warsaw Village Band is a result of response against narrow-mindedness and surrounding us mass-culture, which in fact leads to destruction of human dignity. The band is a radical return to sources in search of musical inspirations and immemorial virtues. It's also an exploration of folklore and archaic sounds. It's also fun, joy and spontaneity. The most important things for us are emotions connected with old Polish music, wildness and the truth which comes from the roots. We started to play old Polish instruments. Our passion is traveling to small villages and visiting old musicians who show us their tradition, technique of playing." Krzak is also quick to give credit to "Wlodzimierz Kleszcz, (he is the producer of such a fantastic projects as Twinkle Brothers& Trebunie Tutki in cooproduction with Adrian Sherwood) who helped us at the beginning. He build first image of the band. We recorded with him our first album in Polish Radio Studio ("Hop sa sa"- by Kamahuk1997). From that time the band has changed the members and from year 2000 started with quite new crew except Maciej the drum player and Maja the cello."

Krzak learned the old way - from a traditional musician, while the rest of the group all attended music school, picking up the folk sound while in the band. It seemed natural for them to gravitate toward traditional music, for its real emotions, "love, passion, sadness. These emotions are timeless. Traditional music is free, we can find there a lots of wild energy, passion. These are what we like the most. We can find there rhythms like in punk-rock music, rock riffs and many other styles. The problem is how to discover it. The most important is carefully listening to old tunes."

Interestingly, the music of Mazovia has a very trance-like quality, which gives WVB a very contemporary feel, although they play acoustic instruments - not unlike Sweden's Hedningarna, in some ways.

"Trance is very important for Mazovia area polish music. You can hear the dances which could be very long, based on a very simply rhythms played on the drum, violin an "basy" (kind of traditional cello) Techno it's nothing new, we knows it from the ages, but we forgotten about it. Bio- because it's very naturally for human nature, Bio- because it's played on wooden acoustics instruments, Bio- because it's the rhythm of ours hearts."

Apart from the instrumental music, another Mazovian quality is the voice, and its peculiar "white singing."

"It's a unique technique of singing on polish villages," explained Krzak. "It's like wild shouting. Singing on scream. It's typical for Mazovia area music."

Like many cultures, Poland has its indigenous instruments, in their case the suka, a traditional fiddle, which WVB feature prominently in their sounds.

"Suka and Fidel Plocka are both very old instruments, they come from the Middle Ages. The technique of playing is like an Indian Sarangi. You play on it sitting down on a chair, you have it on your elbow. You play on it by nail technique, not fingers. You press the strings by your nails no fingers. It's typical for baroque music, but the primitive models were used on the Polish villages."

People's Spring includes two remixes, once in a modern trance style - a perfect fit - and another in, surprisingly, an Indian style.

"Well, every style of music comes from India," noted Krzak, "because our civilization comes from that areas, but there is no special influences between Polish music and Indian. Mazovia music is rather free from Gypsies influences. You can hear such influences on the south of Poland in mountains. Mazovia music is very special style, you can hear there rather Jewish music influences than Gypsies. Remixes are just in a modern style. It's a sign that we live in a global village."

And being part of that global village means offering alternatives, which is exactly what the Warsaw Village Band want to do.

"We are trying to create a new cultural proposition for the youth in an alternative way to contemporary show-biz. That's our fight!"

 12/01/03 >> go there
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