** 2026 Repress ** The Studio Pasterka sessions that followed their hiatus yielded a whole underground ecosystem of material: two 7" singles (“Szlam / Ścieki” and “Bakteria”, the latter featuring DāM‑FunK), the full‑length Grzybnia and, finally, Grzyby – the record that caps this fertile chapter. Demand has kept pace with their productivity. Vinyl collectors quickly snapped up the singles; Grzybnia almost sold out in under six months, setting a new pace for Astigmatic Records and earning a Fryderyk Award nomination in the Alternative category, even as the band picked up a separate Fryderyk for “Godzina W” on the WAWA compilation. Between releases, Błoto have been everywhere: shows across Poland and abroad, their mutant jazz becoming a live staple as much as a crate‑diggers’ favourite.

If Grzybnia (mycelium) laid the conceptual ground – stressing cooperation and the collective weave that runs under individual egos – Grzyby (“Mushrooms”) looks at what pops up above the surface. The mycelium metaphor was always meant as a counter‑image to polarisation: a way to imagine societies that share resources and information instead of walling themselves off. But since that album dropped, the band note, the world has only grown more fractured. We build partitions first inside families, then inside social media bubbles, then at political scale; the trickle‑down from toxic power structures fractures bonds that fungi would treat as lifelines. In that context, mushrooms become a lesson: fruiting bodies constantly talking through their hidden “internet of the forest”, using dialogue, negotiation and communication as survival tools. Grzyby tries to make that logic audible.

Structurally, the record is split like a foraging guide. Side A is medicinal; Side B is poison. The four tracks on the A‑side take their names from fungi with therapeutic properties: “Wrośniak” fights autoimmune disease, “Maczużnik” has antibacterial effects, “Chaga” eases digestive issues and “Soplówka” stimulates the immune system. Musically, they play like different strains of the same remedy: compact, three‑to‑four‑minute cuts where Latarnik’s piano and synths, Wuja HZG’s bass, Cancer G’s drums and OlafSaxx’s saxophones and electronics fuse jazz phrasing with club architecture. “Soplówka”, in particular, has already been picked out by critics for its acidic synth theme, orchestral samples and behind‑the‑beat drum heft, a kind of mutant nu‑jazz that feels equal parts wonky hip‑hop and dark, cinematic house.

Side B is given over entirely to “Pleśniak”, a nine‑plus‑minute ode to a toxic mold whose spores damage liver, skin and mucous membranes – but which also underpinned the discovery of penicillin and still plays a role in cheese‑making. That duality runs through the track: a dub‑techno‑leaning groove that hypnotises, thick with sub‑bass and echo, gradually grows more atmospheric and jazz‑leaning as the band improvise over it, suggesting that even dangerous forces can be turned toward healing under the right conditions. The piece feels less like a “song” and more like a petri dish in motion, microscopic activity scaled up until it shakes a dancefloor.

To do justice to the low‑end physics of this music, Grzyby is cut as a 12‑inch at 45 RPM, a format choice that enhances the bass weight and transient snap of an album steeped in broken‑beat science and club‑facing energy. Limited to 1,000 vinyl copies and 500 CDs (the latter with bonus material), it arrives via Astigmatic Records with mixing and mastering by Kwazar and visuals by Sainer, extending the fungal metaphor into typography and sleeve art. Clocking in at just under 24 minutes for the core five tracks, it plays like a concentrated dose rather than a sprawling field trip: a potent tincture distilled from the longer mycelium narrative of Grzybnia.

Underneath the concept, the band’s method stays consistent. Błoto work like mycelium: drawing nourishment from jazz, house, hip‑hop, techno and the broader Polish experimental scene, then recombining those inputs into something that feels both familiar and newly mutated. On Grzyby, that process is tighter, more streamlined, designed for systems that can handle serious bass and for listeners willing to treat the dancefloor as a place where connection – not just escape – might happen. In a moment when social life seems permanently gridlocked, these five fungal dispatches argue that listening, responsiveness and constant low‑level communication are still our best tools against decay.