Over the last five years Bôłt Records became a leading label in Polish experimental music. The focus on the rich yet unexplored tradition of Polish avant-garde music together with insights into the new scene proved fruitful. Among the label’s main projects is “Polish Radio Experimental Studio”, series of albums combining re-mastered and de-noised archival recordings from the Studio and its new re-interpretations by world famous musicians such as zeitkratzer, John Tilbury, Thomas Lehn, Lionel Marchetti and many others.
Now, in the framework of EASTERN WAVES project organized by Foundation 4.99, the young generation of polish experimentalists, Mirt and Sultan Hagavik as well as the Norwegian voice virtuoso Maja S.K. Ratkje join in to shed the new light on the history of Polish and Norwegian cooperation within boundaries of electronic music.
MIRT, Solitaire
A solo composition being a re-interpretation of the legendary piece “Solitaire” by Arne Nordheim. Mirt’s departure point were various ways of slowing down the original piece of the Norwegian electronic master. The new material revealed number of emerging details appearing only for seconds in different moments of the process. They became the focal point of Mirt’s interest while preparing the new re-interpretation and resulted in an ephemeral piece displaying unexpected planes in the clearly recognizable original.
MAJA S.K. RATKJE, Dialogue with Eugeniusz Rudnik
An open framework to improvise in search of bridges between the tape music of the legendary Polish composer, sound engineer and the father of Polish lo-fi ambient Eugeniusz Rudnik and live electronic and voice music of Maja S.K. Ratkje. Her approach underlines his non-idiomatic use of field recordings and voices as well as intuitive, highly original and instantly recognizable sound world. Ratkje created beautiful and full of surprises landscape full of ambiguous vocalizations, bells, chimes and whistling juxtaposed with sinusoids and noises.
SULTAN HAGAVIK, KØSMØPØLEX FORTE
Crazy improvised tornado based on samples taken from the archives of Polish Radio Experimental Studio. Tape duo Sultan Hagavik made its own statement in approaching the archive, far from its classical composers’ methods and close to its science-fiction film soundtracks tradition. Their performance pays tribute to an ever paradoxical history stretched between its high-brow ambitions and popular uses.
Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and co-financed by the Polish funds