«The Warsaw Village Band, one of Poland’s outstanding new bands, was founded in 1997 by six young musicians wishing to preserve traditional Polish music without producing ‘plastic folk’ for a mass culture. Performing in a style described as “hardcore folk” or “bio techno”, they treasure the memories of their ethnic roots, and keeping them alive, they connect tradition to new modern aesthetics. They want to offer a new cultural proposition young people, far from narrow-mindedness and mass culture. While travelling the Polish countryside, they learnt traditional music that had been nearly forgotten.
Inspired by this music, they play folk dances, ballads, and rural traditionals, but it is very important for them not to simply adapt the old music, but to create their very own style. They use traditional instruments handed down through the generations, such as the ‘white voice’, a special singing style, close to screaming, used by the shepherds of old. They also discovered the ‘suka’, an ancient Polish fiddle, played by fingernails. They create rhythm with two drummers each playing a single drum, which is a rather unusual combination for any kind of folk music.
The Warsaw Village Band wanted to have fun making music in a spontaneous way, and when they first started performing, they just beat their drums in any traditional rhythm occurring to them until they met on common ground, creating a wholly unique and fascinating sound. You can hear stringed instruments sounding like French horns, furious drums, trance, improvisation, and elements of roots music. Above all, you can hear the enthusiasm and passion of six young musicians aged between 16 and 25 years.
Their music brings back long forgotten traditional musical elements of trance, connecting ancient religious culture from all over the world, such as Sufi, Dervish, and Chassidim.To the Warsaw Village Band, music is the soul’s best drug, an inspiration and trance meditation; it is the rhythm and it is fun – let’s dance!» (Adastra-music)
- Do Ciebie Kasiuniu
- Taniec Chasydzki
- U Mojej Matecki
- Niolam Kochanecka
- Czerwone Jabluszko
- Polka Szydlowiecka
- Kto Sie Zani
- Bystra Woda
- Cozes Ty Kasiu
- Polka Folkisdead
- Pada Deszczyk
- Zurawie
- Maydow
- Mateczka Indo-European Minimal
- Joint Vienture In The Village
Maja Kleszcz:
voice, chello
Magdalena Sobczak Kotnarowska: voice, dulcimer
Sylwia Świątkowska: voice, violin, płock fiddle
Ewa Wałecka:
voice, violin
Wojtek Krzak: violin, drums
Piotr Gliński: baraban drum, percusión
Paweł Mazurczak: double bass
Maciej Szajkowski: polish frame drum, percusión
Mario Activator: soundmaster
pass: terrenosdenylon
