Piotr Kurek

10 years anniversary limited repress of the amazing "Edena" by Piotr Kurek! As a composer and multi-instrumentalist with a penchant for vintage sound equipment, as well as the practical sense to know where their limitations are, his musical compositions -- part melodic narrative, part sound collage -- distill a sense of nostalgia into a romance for the present. Using a Moebius comic he had never seen (Le Monde d'Edena) and an instrument he would never have (a Mellotron) as a conceptual starting point, the Warsaw-based, Polish artist presents Edena. A hypnotic, circular motion pervades all of Edena; a cyclic life-force that gives the impression of forward motion, while really folding back on itself, reflected by the infinity symbol of the cassette cover. The record is full of warm analog synth sounds and strange voices, like Roberto Cacciapaglia's "6 Note in Logica," and shares connections with the minimalistic music and '60s experimentalism of Steve Reich, Philip Glass and the hyper-energetic electronic nirvana of Terry Riley's 1967 masterpiece A Rainbow in Curved Air.

"Characteristically for Kurek, the sounds here are rich and whimsical, going for the kaleidoscopic, 'happy-go-lucky' electronica with a penchant for some masterful sample collages. Like the cut-up female voices and brilliantly sparse xylophone workouts on 'Tonal Colors,' effortlessly gliding through a Technicolor rainbow of retro psychedelia ... Piotr Kurek proves once again that he's one of the masters of Polish trippertronic scene, constantly one-upping himself into new levels." --Weed Temple