Spalona Ziemia

The trio is a perfect composition for broadly understood improvised music, sufficient in terms of minimum and generally reflecting to the maximum what the musicians want to convey to the listener.
In the case of the Wrocław-based trio Marek Otwinowski, Michał Sikorski and Marcin Witkowski, this "width" of understanding improvisation is particularly visible. This is not a classic free-jazz band or even free-improv, because the musicians go far beyond these frames, touching noise, avant-garde, industrial or even metal. This music, radical in content and form, so fascinated the two titans of the improvised music scene, Mikołaj Trzaska and Jerzy Mazzoll, that when asked only to arrange the original order of the vinyl version independently of each other, they also decided to create their own, 5-minute "deconstructive" interpretations of this album, recently released on 7-inch vinyl and this is how they write about this album:

"The scorched earth ("Spalona ziemia") is not as scorched as it might seem, I would say that it is burning or even hot earth. Their music is a picture, a reportage from the very beginning of the formation of the "silver globe", when billions of years ago it was thrown out of Out of space, a lump of hot lava turned into a ball; it cooled down to become a mega-organism on which life developed for eons, unhurriedly and in community. Mikołaj TRZASKA

"Polish impro has been at its best in recent decades, reaching the world level of Polish composers of the 1950s and 1960s. I don't care what others do (...), but what is most important is happening here and now: this music, composition , the sound - it's Scorched earth!" Jerzy MAZZOLL

When performing spontaneous compositions, the authors' attention is focused on both creation with the sound and sound creation. One of the band's starting languages are experimental preparations and variously generated sounds - e.g. of amplified everyday objects. The trio does not resort to maintaining one aesthetic, mixing various sound concepts. The music here is a metaphorical sediment on the filter that stops genre stereotypes, codes and clichés. It is a triple improvisational sieve, in which, among the remnants, you can find traces of noise, metal, avant-garde, futuristic electronics, collage soundscapes as well as scraps of dreamlike ambients or narrative animations that make you smile. Music extracted from ruins and ashes? Yes.

The musicians co-created various independent and experimental music formations, including: BigRip, Karbido, Progrram, Kormorany, Rheino de Rotten, Pieśni Piękne, with which they played many concerts in Poland, Europe and around the world, and took part in the recording of nearly twenty albums.

Marek Otwinowski (maot) - bass player, improviser, composer, producer; author of theater music and radio dramas; co-founder of the Karbido artistic group (2003-) and co-author of all its works - awarded and presented around the world. Musician of the Swiss trio Rheino de Rotten; co-author of the series Music 4 buildings (2009-). On a daily basis, a graphic designer, author of theater scripts and translations of Ukrainian poetry.

Michał Sikorski - clarinetist and multi-instrumentalist, improviser associated with the European improv scene. Founder of the BigRip formation, performer of numerous solo performances and live act shows. Organizer of concerts and music events centered around the EXIT Contemporary Art Gallery, of which he is the curator. Artist working in the field of new media, painter, professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. Author of many individual and group exhibitions.

Marcin Witkowski - musician, drummer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and performer. He has been active on the experimental music scene in Poland and abroad for nearly 30 years. Performer and co-composer of music for many projects and theatrical performances. Author of innovative playing methods and unique preparations of electro-acoustic and electronic instruments. musician, among others Kormorany, Pieśń Piękna, Zoubek/Cruz/Witkowski. He also implements his solo project Witkowski mono.