Samoobrona is essentially constructed upon the fragmentation of speeches of variable intensity pronounced by a quartet of characters, but – in the same manner liked by this reviewer when he’s listening to akin recordings – those elements should be merely considered as a part of the orchestration. A significant intellectual content is definitely there, though; and – generally speaking – it has to do with the loss of individual freedom as a primary consequence of physicality.
The work is an efficient conglomeration of broken/altered sentences, palpitating rhythms and electronic transcendence. It often conveys the obscure pleasures of a late-night frantic surf across mysterious stations, comprising a certain amount of mounting tension and several escalations towards (competently regulated) chaos. The origin of everything is a radio play written halfway through the 70s by Helmut Kajzar, himself an advocate of the importance of the “color” of words in an experimental theatre context. Piotrowicz and Jiřička added new layers to the conception, creating approximately 29 minutes of music replete with mutilated phrases and anxious soliloquies seamed inside abstract nightmares, convulsive superimposed patterns, obsessive repetitions and dialogues expressing a considerable degree of anguish.
The voices are systematically engulfed by Piotrowicz’s analogue sources giving an idea of real-time manipulation of the material, in spite of the fundamental compositional nature of the whole. The Polish accents may not be your cup of tea, but this doesn’t affect the piece’s momentum. On the contrary, a number of juxtapositions facilitate the absorption based on sheer intuition; unknown meanings and unpredictable synthetic washes constitute an intelligent marriage. Or, to quote Daniel Muzyczuk’s liners, it’s all about “the constant completing of someone else’s thoughts as if the four brains being parts of one head were linked by one electric impulse”.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 