As Franczak says:
Actually I've been playing the piano longest. It was after some years that I started to learn playing the guitar on my own, going for rehearsals, playing in my first bands. I took up serious music education only in high school, when I decided that I wanted to play the saxophone. For two years I went to the music school on Miodowa Street, I learnt the basics. Later I attended the jazz school on Bednarska Street for a year. After that I put the saxophone aside for some time and focused on the guitar. I played in different punk groups then. While studying, I met Olgierd Dokalski, who suggested I brought my saxophone and came to rehearse with Daktari.
He underlines that these were the beginnings of the band's activity. He had to play the saxophone for the first time in few years:
I learnt the technique, the jazz improvisation in the classic understanding. I didn't play the music that Daktari did. But it turned out that my playing adds something interesting to the band's sound, which is very multi-dimensional, after all. Daktari didn't play jazz. The jazz was rather implied by the presence of the wind instruments. We weren't formally schooled musicians with diplomas. We had background in alternative music or punk, we were rather interested in guitar playing: experimental, yet still guitar playing. We didn't have experience in playing jazz, so we played it like punks. We were equally inspired by folk songwriting, punk rock, and classic jazz. We listened to different types of music. All members had their own sound and personality, a contribution to make to the collective. Olgierd kept guard over everything.
Before the release of the first album, Daktari played at the Opener Festival:
We were flooded with offers and invitations to play concerts, which motivated us to work. We saw effects that it brought. Around the same time I joined the band HOW HOW, in which Miron Grzegorkiewicz, Daktari's guitarist, played. Through these years my main instrument was the saxophone. I practiced for seven hours a day, I imposed a harsh discipline on myself. Finally I felt that I had to rest from this instrument. Sometimes I happen to play it, but I came back to playing the guitar. However, I used the saxophone while I was recording the solo album.
On Long Story Short Franczak put the saxophone aside in favour of the guitar, but also singing. The music journalist Bartek Chaciński commented:
We hear instrumental recordings for the guitar. They are impressionistic, kept in a slow tempo, and when a vocal or an instrument appears, it's clearly in a form of a bonus. Everything is played lightly, almost negligently, at moments it sounds as amateur playing, taking into account that some minor mistakes are accepted, but everything is brilliantly mixed by The Norman Conquesta. There's this great and even a bit hit-like song, Moving, and a fascinating, gloomy instrumental piece, Crawling.
Daktari was suspended for some time. As Franczak commented:
We never announced a split-up. Everyone went their own way, but it's highly possible that we will meet again and play together. I'd been wanting to do something on my own for a long time. I always played with other people, I had to compromise, there was democracy. I felt good with it and that was exciting, but I needed to create something mine from the beginning to the end. I started to play the guitar again after many years, but I didn't want to play it as it should be played. I took it as if I had never played it before and I tried to transfer on it the language that I worked out during playing the saxophone and the piano: minimalism. I wanted to achieve the biggest effect with as little means as possible, or even try to play with a lack of precision, some inaccuracy. I also decided that I would start recording right away. I started at home with some sketches, later I went to the countryside, I locked myself in a cottage by the lake, I set up the equipment and recorded something every day. That's how the majority of the pieces for my first album were created, that was the first approach to every piece.
In 2017 Franczak performed at the OFF Festival in Katowice, where he played the material from his next solo album Night-night, which will be released in spring 2018. In the meantime the first record of Giorgio Fazer, a project of Franczak and Grzegorkiewicz, appeared. It consists of improvised pieces for two guitars, electronica and vocals.
Written by Piotr Jagielski, translated by MW, January 2018
Selected discography:
- Daktari – This Is the Last Song I Wrote About Jews. Vol. 1, Multikulti, 2011
- HOW HOW – Flickers, Antena Krzyku, 2011
- Daktari – I Travel Within My Dreams With a German Passport, Circon Int., 2013
- HOW HOW – Knick-Knack, FYH! Records, 2013
- Daktari – Lost Tawns, Multikulti, 2014
- HOW HOW – Knick-Knack 2, FYH! Records, 2014
- Mateusz Franczak – Long Story Short, Too Many Fireworks Records, 2016
- Pure Phase Ensemble 5 ft. Hugo Race – Live at Spacest!, Nasiono Records, 2016
- Warsaw Improvisers Orchestra – CSW14_03_2015, Fundacja SŁUCHAJ!, 2016
- Giorgio Fazer – Gorzki To Chleb Jest Polskość, Too Many Fireworks Records, 2017