An On Bast – Songs For Running Through Grass (2014)

An On Bast

Anna Suda - electronics

Songs For Running Through Grass

GHOST KITCHEN 01





By Adam Baruch

Polish Jazz enthusiasts are familiar with electronic producer and live performer An On Bast (real name Anna Suda) thanks to a series of wonderful recordings she made with trumpeter Maciej Fortuna, where her extraordinary creations met the Jazz idiom. But before recording with Fortuna she was already a world famous artists, performer and recording artist of her own accord with an ongoing career since 2006. An On Bast recorded this solo album after the recordings with Fortuna and its release also marks a debut on her own record label called Ghost Kitchen. It includes eleven relatively short tracks, all composed by her.

Contemporary electronic/ambient music is rarely interesting to me, as it is based mostly on schematic, very predictable sound formulas and rhythmic patterns. The great Godfathers of electronic music, like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgar Varese and many others, started the electronic explorations to expand the borders of sound as known to the human ear, but by the end of the 20^th Century it was completely bastardized, commercialized and vandalized by the Pop (non)Culture of the time, becoming more of a noise pollution than music in any respect.

Of course there are always exceptions and An On Bast is for me one of them. Her electronic/ambient sounds are aesthetically pleasing; non aggressive and diverse enough to keep the attention of the listener rather than hypnotize him by a drone like repetitious mechanical sound poison. There is enough melodic element, development and variety to keep things interesting for the duration of the album, and listening to it becomes quite a fun after a while, especially in a relaxed, hassle-free environment, like driving or late night listening.

Although I hope An On Bast will continue her involvement with the Jazz world in the future, her electronic works are now another avenue of soundscapes I find worth following. Well done!

An On Bast/Maciej Fortuna – Electroacoustic Transcription Of Film Music By Krzysztof Penderecki (2013) ****

An On Blast - live electronics, trumpet processing

Maciej Fortuna - trumpet, live electronics, trumpet processing, miscellaneous

FM 013

 

 

 

 By Adam Baruch

This is the third album by the Polish duo, which consists of ambient / electronic music artists An On Bast (a.k.a. Anna Suda) and Jazz trumpeter / composer Maciej Fortuna. The album includes thirteen tracks, which were composed and conceived by the duo, all inspired by music composed by the Polish Classical composer Maestro Krzysztof Penderecki, which was either composed as soundtrack music for cinematographic productions or used in such capacity. The album also includes a DVD, which presents six short videos by visual artist Pawel Wypych, based on six tracks present on the CD, which visualize the music using black & white animations and collages.

Penderecki's involvement with film music is relatively less acknowledged in comparison to his large scale symphonic works, but it has always been some of the most impressive and dramatic of its kind and accompanied some of the best films by some of the most important directors, like David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Andrzej Wajda and others.

This is by far the most complex and advanced project realized to date by the duo, which shows another perspective as well as another depth of their music. The personal and artistic courage to undertake a project like this one is to be admired and encouraged. After generations of Polish Jazz repeatedly dealing with the music of Frederic Chopin, often ad nauseam, the young and bold Polish Jazz lions discover contemporary Polish Classical music as the source of their inspiration. In 2012 the pianist Piotr Orzechowski released a sensational album with his interpretation of music by Maestro Penderecki ("Experiment: Penderecki") and now this album does it again, no less boldly one may add. Other Jazz albums, for example with music by Wojciech Kilar, were also released lately. This is definitely a refreshing trend.

The music included herein is truly overwhelming. Listeners with little or no experience with electronic music or the usage of electronic effects might find it initially strange and a bit difficult, but a couple of listening sessions should break the ice. An On Bast uses an array of different sound effects to create a rich and diverse background upon which Fortuna adds his incredible trumpet passages. These two elements: the electronic and the acoustic, work perfectly together to create a deeply atmospheric musical creation, floating in the infinite sonoric space.

Album after album and step after step Fortuna builds up a body of work that is most impressive and simply can not be ignored. His immense talent and versatility, as demonstrated herein in the collaboration with contemporary musical vocabulary, is awe-inspiring. The level of intellectual and emotional dialogue between these two young artists is a ray of hope in this dark age where most things seem to be simply fading out. Thank you!

An On Bast / Maciej Fortuna – Live (2013) ***1/2

An On Bast - electronics
Maciej Fortuna - trumpet

PRIVATE EDITION







By Adam Baruch

This is the second album by the Polish duo, which consists of ambient / electronic music artists An On Bast (a.k.a. Anna Suda) and Jazz trumpeter / composer Maciej Fortuna. The album includes ten tracks which were composed and conceived by the duo, all recorded live on two different occasions. The last track is a tribute to the memory of the great Polish Jazz trumpeter / composer Andrzej Przybielski, who died in February 2011.

This album continues the direction set up by the duo's debut album, which combines electronic / synthesized ambient vistas with trumpet solos stating the melodic elements of the music. Although not completely innovative, this music differs from most similar projects since it involves a virtuosic player like Fortuna, who is capable of lengthy and complex improvisations, keeping a clear tone and superb fluency at all times. Although this music is not very easy to listen to, requiring maximal attention blended with fruitful imagination, it speaks to a wider population of listeners than the very limited Jazz audience. Ambient / electronic music gained quite a following in the last decades and therefore there is a good chance this music might be appealing to them as well.

Of course the trumpet parts played by Fortuna are the focus of this music, as the melodic sounds he produces are what the human ear is used to, much more so than the ambient sounds in the background. And yet an experienced listener quickly discovers the symbiotic relationship between these two layers, which enables the existence of one only in the presence of the other. The combined sound is dense, engaging and aesthetically pleasing, even at its darkest moments.

The fact that Fortuna is engaged in this project in parallel to his numerous other, mostly Jazz oriented activities proves his diversity as an artist and his open-mindedness, which is often quite limited among other players. Overall this is a project that deserves to be heard and praised for bridging the cross-genre gaps and exploring uncharted territory.

This is definitely worth investigating, especially for the more adventurous listeners, who are willing to take certain risks in order to gain new experiences.