In The Garden of Press Pack was produced by multi-instrumentalist Bartosz Weber. He is the co-founder of the bands Baaba and Slalom, as well as a member of Mitch & Mitch, Warszawska Orkiestra Rozrywkowa, and the Lado ABC association. He is currently concentrating on a solo project under his own name and his new material is a return to electronic music. As a guitarist and sampler, he plays in his own band Baaba, which has so far recorded five albums and given countless concerts in clubs and during renowned festivals in Poland and abroad. In Mitch & Mitch, Weber finds fulfilment playing guitar, keyboard, percussion and a sampler. Together with the group, he has recorded four albums, toured all over Europe and reached even Brazil and Israel.
Filip Lech: What was your first encounter with the music of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio?
Bartosz Weber: I don’t remember! But I’d assume it wasn’t the easiest to listen to. As a young lad, I wasn’t interested in contemporary music. I’d guess that I started with the Study for One Cymbal Stroke by Włodzimierz Kotoński.
FL: Is the ethos of experiment dear to you? How is electronic music experimental in 2019?
BW: Obviously, I like to get involved mostly with the sound layer. As a self-declared sampler, I try to approach music in a way that makes at least a couple of its aspects bring about something new. The context is also important. I only fully understood Kotoński’s Study… after I started working with sound production myself.
The experimentality of electronic music in 2019 depends on the point of view. At the end of the 20th century, there was a term in electronic music called ‘abstract beats’. But these were not actually abstract beats – what would that even mean – some people simply thought about them this way. Experiments should move a given field forward or they should at least help us understand its mechanisms.
