Tomasz Sroczynski & Marek Pospieszalski - Bareness (Requiem, 2014) ****

By Stef

We receive a lot of music, really more than any person can ever listen to, and more than any person would care to listen to. Sometimes, as we've had in the past, some music gets the attention because of its unique sound. This is one of those albums.

The duo is Tomasz Scroczynski on violin (already presented on his "Rite Of Spring Variation") and Marek Pospieszalski on tenor saxophone and clarinet (see also "Power Of The Horns" and on "Bandoleros En Gdansk" with the Gonzalez family).

The duo was recorded in a fifteenth Century church in Poland, and the space is like a third musician in the ensemble, and the studio afterwards even more probably ... and it works well. The sound is more like a soundtrack, the kind of music that sets a mood, that colors a story with effects that work quite directly on the emotions of the listener without you actually being aware of it. It affects you in a kind of unnoticeable way. It has its own aesthetic. The music is not inobtrusive, it is at times mesmerising, with raw outbursts once in a while, sometimes soothing, but more often than not inviting the listener into the strange cinematic universe both musicians create, one that is influenced by the great composers, ranging from Bach over Philip Glass to Zbigniew Preisner and John Butcher, and yes, maybe even Amon Tobin.

Needless to say that the music is beyond genre. But the dramatic effect is guaranteed.