20. EABS – Reflections of Purple Sun (Astigmatic)
In Poland (but also increasingly abroad), EABS play a role similar to Sons of Kemet, Domi & JD Beck, or Ezra Collective. To a large extent, thanks to these bands, the stereotype of jazz as music performed in philharmonics for an audience dressed in suits has been broken. Reflections of Purple Sun proves that making a one-time breakthrough is not enough for this band. Instead of resting on their laurels and sticking to a well-working formula, the five musicians constantly transform, this time drawing heavily from club music.
The concept has already been explored by Yussef Kamaal, Soccer96, or the French jazz touch, but EABS don’t follow the trend – it takes a trip a half-century back. The new album shows the vitality of jazz, directly referring to “Purple Sun” by Tomasz Stańko Quintet, released in 1973, and leaves no doubt that the passage of time has left no trace on it. It’s an inexhaustible source of inspiration, music way ahead of its time, and with the right musicians diving into it will remain challenging to catch up with.
19. Rafał Zapała / Hashtag Ensemble – Futility (Kairos)
Hashtag Ensemble are one of those contemporary ensembles that keep the term “new music” what it should be – a fresh approach to classical music, not just another genre name filled with clichés and easy solutions. The group currently consists of 17 people, all with a specific set of skills and unique points of view, which made it ideally suited to take on the participatory compositions of Rafał Zapała. Participatory, so invading the audience’s safe zone and involving listeners in active participation in the concert. If this provocative concept, which also makes extensive use of new technologies, proved so intriguing when recorded, it must be even more fascinating live.
18. Allarme – Allarme (Awaria)
Allarme are another group on this list (after Ostatnia Klatka and Faraway) that don’t hide their fascination with Polish post-punk and coldwave from the 1980s. It’s another with a distinctive idea of what else can be done with a wide selection of albums from once the most popular genres on the alternative scene. Added ingredients come primarily from no-wave and noise rock, which took the band’s sound on a more lively, aggressive, and wild path than one could expect from such ingredients. It’s cold, yet the fever creeps up on the forehead while listening to these ten songs.
17. Lulu Suicide – Hi Im Ready to Die (Independent)
More shoegaze records were released in the last three years than in the whole first half of the 1990s when this music was still forming and having its first successes. Many of them are no more than tributes to Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, and the bands behind them look to be okay with imitating the sound they love.
But there are some exceptions, such as the Poznań’s duo Lulu Suicide. Hi Im Ready to Die has so many energetic moments that you can forget about staring at your shoes; some expand to the Deftones territory, others to catchy, stadium rock for the masses. The title track is already quite popular, thanks to its use in the video game “Crime Scene Cleaner”, where the goal is precisely what the name says – cleaning up the mess left by the mafia.
16. Lumbago – Lumbago (U Jazz Me)
2024 was very busy for the drummer Tymek Papior and the bassist Paweł Stachowiak – the first of them released a solo debut (Rugs / Carpets), the latter can be heard on several excellent LPs (including three others from this list – EABS, Błoto, and Hatti Vatti). In their busy schedules, they somehow managed to find free time to form a new duo project. Luckily to us, this uncommon combination of jazz, electronics, and hip-hop contributed to surprisingly diverse music, ranging from patiently executed experiments (in the 18-minute title track) to spontaneous madness in the vein of free jazz (in “Womit” with a guest appearance of saxophonist Kacper Krupa).
15. Zamilska – United Kingdom of Anxiety (Untuned)
United Kingdom of Anxiety is Zamilska’s gloomiest, heaviest album, and that was the goal. Listeners were supposed to feel bad and provoked to think about where we are as human beings greedily exploiting this planet and each other. But the message is that we need to change, not give up. While instrumental music might not be the best medium for such a statement, the crushing chords opposed to danceable rhythms give a good idea of how full of contradictions reality we are living in. Since the world’s end is coming anyway, why not dance to it? Zamilska didn’t have to reach for new ways to express herself; she simply intensified what she is best known for – techno, industrial, and noise.
14. Filip Żółtowski Quartet – Bibi (Alpaka)
Sticking to the “fusion” label when so many new, surprising blends of jazz and other genres are created doesn’t make much sense. Young groups drawing from hip-hop, drum & bass, or grime have little in common with Mahavishnu Orchestra or Bitches Brew; they represent a more egalitarian approach, where all of these influences are not just ornaments but an equal component.
This method is very present on the second album of Filip Żółtowski’s quartet. In this “diffusion” approach, the net movement of techniques and characteristic aesthetic features make for a coherent blend. On the one hand, it’s a pleasure to analyze it and dig deeper with each listen; on the other, it’s also compelling to lose yourself in music and sail away into the unknown.
13. Kosmonauci – Sorry, nie tu (U Jazz Me)
Kosmonauci are another young band with a jazz background and a different vision of what their education and early experiences can become. Interestingly, they do not add electronic tools or unusual instruments, and because of sonically remaining close to the tradition, it takes more effort to discover their originality. If listened to carefully and with attention, their music can surprise, for example, with rhythms taken from drum and bass and hip-hop. It is also worth emphasizing that Tymon Kosma is one of the most interesting vibraphonists of the young generation, not only on the Polish music scene.
12. Thaw – Fading Backwards (Agonia)
After a few years of hiatus, Thaw have finally released a long-awaited fifth album. From its very first minutes, it reminds us how malleable a genre of black metal can be… Or maybe the transgression has gone so far on this release that the already enormous broad framework of this subgenre of heavy metal is unable to encompass the content of “Fading Backwards”? Sludge, doom, drone, ambient, noise – in some capacity, all of them are here, united by an aura so thick that you could cut it with a knife. It may make listening a bit uncomfortable, but it’s hard to resist playing this album repeatedly.
11. Synthezaur – Birth of the Synthezaur (Kxntrst)
Ignacy Matuszewski has collaborated with some of the most popular Polish artists, including Ralph Kaminski and Tymek. Not so long ago he was running a successful band Romantic Fellas, he co-creates the Gimnastyka Artystyczna with Legendarny Afrojax, which in the Polish underground – in keeping with its name – already has the status of a legend, and beyond that, he also studied jazz piano and harpsichord. Man of Renaissance, but it still wasn’t enough, so he founded a new solo project with the much-telling name Synthezaur.
It’s not one of those countless synthwave projects with little to say, apart from paying homage to John Carpenter and favorite video games from the 1980s. Stylistically, it’s a similar area, but Matuszewski’s skills and experience prevent him from getting bogged down in obvious choices. This may be one of the top synth albums ever made