A Tricity-based band that moves skilfully between space-rock, psychedelia and jazz. After recording four studio albums, the group suspended activities in 2022.
Lonker See was formed in 2015 as a duo of singer and bassist Joanna Kucharska and guitarist Bartosz Borowski. By that time, the two musicians were no longer anonymous artists on the Tricity scene. Kucharska played in the post-punk Kiev Office and co-founded the space-rock band 1926, of which Borowski was also a member. As a duo, Lonker See played ambient guitar music. Their first recordings were made at Łąckie Lake, whose name in German means Lonker See.
The duo chapter in the band’s history did not last long. Already the following year, the line-up grew into a quartet. Lonker See was joined by saxophonist Tomasz Gadecki and drummer Michał Gos. Both are primarily associated with the jazz community. Gadecki played among others in the duo Olbrzym i Kurdupel, while Gos set up rhythm for many yass and jazz initiatives originating from Tricity (for example, Oczi Cziorne or the trio with Wojtczak and Mazolewski). This way, a natural tension between the rock and jazz factions emerged in Lonker See right from the start.
Back in 2016, the debut album Split Image was released by the label run by Borowski. On it, the quartet focused on slowly building monumental forms, in which space-rock psychedelia and hard-rock literalism resounded at times. Jakub Knera wrote for the website Nowe Idzie od Morza:
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The result is an album that is spacious but intense, trance-like and multi-layered. The compositions are often based on repetitive forms, only to develop in the end, acquiring cosmic overtones, mainly due to Gos’ percussion and Gadecki’s saxophone phrases.
An Immersive Journey
The good reviews of the debut led to the release of Lonker See’s second album being taken up by the Kraków-based label Instant Classic, whose catalogue at the time featured some of the most talked-about albums in independent rock music. One Eye Sees Red, which premiered in 2018, was no different. Polityka, Bartek Chaciński wrote the following about the second album by the Tricity group for the Polityka magazine:
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It combines two virtues: a rather mature management of these tools of strong rock and a natural, jazzily-constructed sound space. It convinces the listener that a band which was so promising a few years ago is now fulfilling everyone’s hopes.
Reviews were also pouring in from abroad. The famous Italian-American critic Piero Scaruffi went to great lengths to convey the character of One Eye Sees Red. In just one paragraph, he compared Lonker See to the jazz avant-gardists of Australia’s The Necks, claimed that the group plays a ‘post-ambient version of prog-rock’, and in the track Solaris Pt. 3 & 4 draws on the artistic output of the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd and Caravan. Julian Marszalek was more succinct in his opinion – he ended his enthusiastic review for the UK portal The Quietus with the sentence:
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An immersive journey from start to finish, 'One Eye Sees Red' demands and rewards your full attention.
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The cover of the Lonker album 'See One Eye Sees Red', 2018, photo: producer's press materials
Good reviews translated into the growing popularity of the group, which spent much of the following year on tour. Lonker See performed not only in Poland and Central and Eastern European countries, but also toured Germany, Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. In May 2019, they took to the stage twice at Barcelona’s Primavera, one of Europe’s most important festivals. The band’s good impression during live performances and the contacts made on tour resulted in January shows in the UK, where Lonker See supported the post-punk band Squid.
In fact, the band has repeatedly made it clear that concerts are the essence of making music for them. The musicians have admitted in interviews that one of the main reasons they record albums is precisely to be able to share these sounds with the audience during live performances. So it should come as no surprise that the group has self-released two live albums. The double album Lonker Seession / Live At Pijana Czapla was released in 2017, followed three years later by 'Live At Grand Café Szeged'.
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The cover of the Lonker See album 'Lonker Sessions / Live at Pijana Czapla', photo: producer's press materials
Changes, twists, surprises
In 2020, Antena Krzyku label released Hamza, Lonker See’s third studio album, featuring less jazz and psychedelic influences and more heavy guitar riffs. Although the title track Hamza proves that the group can record a subdued, almost ballad-like song led by an expressive bass line and saxophone, the quartet has undoubtedly moved towards rock music with this album.
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The cover of the album Lonker See 'Hamza', 2020, photo: producer's press materials
In October 2020, Lonker See self-released the album Duets. It contains a recording of nine improvised encounters between individual band members that took place in 2017 in Gdańsk. Thus, the jazz duet of Gadecki and Gos is accompanied here by minimalist guitar psychedelia performed by Kucharska and Borowski.
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The cover of Lonker See's 'Time Out' album, 2022, photo: producer's press materials
Time Out is the title of Lonker See’s fourth album, released by Antena Krzyku in 2021. After the more rock-oriented Hamza, the group recorded an album where mood and sonic nuances seem to be more important. Writing for the Nowa Muzyka portal, Jarek Szczęsny noted that Time Out is essentially a noir record, and this is an apt summary of the Tricity line-up’s music. Lonker See’s compositions may remind one of the achievements of the group ARRM, with whom Lonker See recorded a split in 2017, or even the recordings of dark ambient-jazz bands such as Bohren & der Club of Gore or The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.
Explaining this stylistic turn in the band’s development, Kucharska pointed to a certain tranquillity and a pretext for deep reflections brought by the period of the pandemic. In an interview with Trojmiasto.pl, she emphasised that the change was also dictated by the musicians’ desire for Lonker See to continually evolve and surprise. And indeed, the following year the group surprised everyone by announcing that they were going to suspend their activities. The title of their last album proved to be prophetic.
