Cover of the Baaba Disco Externo Album
Baaba, the Warsaw-based electronic jazz "supergroup", performs live to an exquisite line-up of Polish classic animated films. The band launches its US tour with a wildly animated opening concert of the Unsound Festival in New York
Baaba - a quartet composed of Bartosz Weber, Macio Moretti, Piotr Zabrodzki, and Tomasz Duda - was founded by Bartosz Weber in 2000. Known as a Polish underground supergroup, the band often collaborates with a wide range of jazz and underground musicians and producers, mixing jazz and rock melodies with psychodelic beats and danceable funk. By the end of its first year, the band had won over a large base of fans and critics across Poland and Europe with wild concerts that often border on performance art. Baaba has played all over the Old Continent (in England, France, Germany, and Russia), at respected jazz and electronica festivals, and in music clubs during major European festivals: the Fertilizer Festival (London, Leeds), SKIF Festival (St. Petersburg), United Islands of Prague , Warsaw Summer Jazz Days, JVC Jazz Festival (Warsaw), Les Nuits Europeenes (Strasbourg), Terra Polska (Berlin), Unsound on Tour (Minsk, Belarus), and Top Fest Zelena Voda (Slovakia).
After six years and four studio albums, the group is often joined by famous jazz and underground musicians and producers with the biggest names from the worlds of pop and avantgarde alike. Beginning with electronica, their music has gradually evolved through a flirtatious mix with the avantgarde. The fruit of this affair is Baaba's latest album, Disco Externo (released in April 2010), which has received enthusiastic reviews in major Polish magazines. 2011 brought yet another project from the band - the album entitled Baaba Kulka filled with their interpretations of songs by Iron Maiden. Baaba Kulka divided critics and hardcore metal fans. While the former loved the record, the latter were disgusted at the band's profanation of their idols, and all of the public's reactions made the superband members extremely joyous. The current live line-up to perform in the US includes: Tomasz Duda (saxophones, flute, sampler), Bartosz Weber (guitar, sampler), Piotr Zabrodzki (base) and Macio Moretti (drums).
The band performs in New York as part of the US edition of the Polish-produced Unsound Festival, a presentation of the most innovative musical acts from all over the globe that takes place at BAMCINÉMATEK and other New York venues between the 18th-22nd of April. Baaba opens the festival with "a captivating look into the metaphorical and stylistically rich world of Polish animation from the 50s to the early 70s, incorporating currents in national graphic arts, painting, puppetry and experimental theater". Macio Moretti and Piotr Zabrodzki perform again under their LXMP formation, performing with Jamaican dub pioneers Peaking Lights on the 19th. They characterise the LXMP style as "Using the basic set of drums, bass guitar and two MS-20 synthesizers, Piotras and Macias are trying to recall the memories of romantic strolls across downtown Warsaw allotments, unexplained absences from phys-ed classes or the taste of snow in far-away mountain resorts."
Jacaszek performs haunting works from his new album Glimmer. His work is a melange of classical instrumentation—harpsichords, woodwinds, strings—and blurring, rubbed-down electronic textures, all of which makes listening an intensely cathartic, exploratory experience. This is, more than anything else, music as a mind and body exploration. "All my artistic activity is based on the intuition that there is a hidden reality existing behind or beside the material world,” he says. "And on a big desire to touch it, show it, [and] feel it."
On the 22nd the Denis Kolokol/Tomek Chołoniewski Duo & Nate Wooley perform innovative jazz as part of the Unsound Labs project. Unsound's closing party features Polish trio Napszyklat's mix of experimental sounds, noise and hip hop - with lyrics in their native tongue.
After its performance at Unsound (18.04) Baaba goes on to perform at the Detroit Institute of Arts and Los Angeles Cinefamily. The programme includes Academy Award-winner Zbigniew Rybczyński's New Book (1975), Waldemar Borowczyk's Banner of Youth (1958), Mirosław Kijowicz's Cages (Grand Prix at Annency, 1967), as well as the visually innovative Stairs by Stanisław Schanbeck and Chair by Daniel Szczechura (1963). This compilation offers a captivating look into the metaphorical, playful and stylistically rich world of Polish animation, incorporating the most interesting trends in Polish graphic arts, painting, puppetry and experimental theatre.
Full Baaba concert programme
NEW YORK // Part of UNSOUND Festival
18th of April, 2012, 7 pm
BAMcinématek
30 Lafayette Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11217
Tel. 718-636-4100
DETROIT
27th of April, 2012, 7 pm & 8:30 pm
Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue
Detroit, Michigan 48202
Tel. 313-833-7900
LOS ANGELES
29th of April, 2012, 8 pm
The Cinefamily
611 N. Fairfax Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Tel. 323-655-2510
Source: www.polishculture-nyc.org
Thumbnail source: Myspace