Julek Ploski

śpie

With a style similar to Oneohtrix Point Never or Arca's first albums, Julek Ploski manages to astonish, frighten and disorient thanks to his unstable pieces that, with a bizarre fluidity, come undone and reassemble without losing their core essence. 

Upon seeing these live sets by Julek Ploski the first thing that might strike us as odd is how young he is. When I first heard the album, I did imagine that the author would be a young person, but the whole image that was forming in my mind's eye was very, very different. The same goes for the space in which these sets are being played and who are they being played for. I might be suffering from a mild case of the times are changing-itis but it seems that experimental music is seeping its way through a younger generation which is already skipping the whole "rock-to-punk-to alternative-to-experimental-to..." process; most of them are diving head first into the obtuse world of deconstructed club beats, the nostalgia-core of vaporwave aesthetics, the atmospheric abrasiveness of noise or the engulfing textures of drone and ambient. This is not a rant, but quite the contrary: it is a celebration.

     Being an emerging talent, Julek still keeps a low profile,and any information regarding his formation as a musician might be relegated to his personal profiles on social media only, but after a few listens, the influence -whether he acknowledges or not- that mostly comes to mind is that of venezuelan artist Alejandro Ghersi, better known as Arca. It doesn't take that much to realize it, but with every listen, the similarities become more apparent, as if with every replay, the songs were slowly shedding layer after layer of their being until revealing the origins of their true self down to a molecular level.

     The similarities with Ghersi's work range from the album cover art to the uneasy, glitch-ridden pieces, full of tempestuous industrial beats and stabbing synth notes that bear a pristine but somewhat rusted timbre; however, Ploski is not a poor man's Arca. The young polish artist manages to master and expand upon what Arca did with albums such as Xen or Mutant, and presents a well rounded compilation of 12 meticulously crafted tracks that sound gargantuan thanks to a production that stands midway between polished and raw. This endows each piece with enough volume to explode with tectonic force while also sounding clear enough to appreciate all the bizarre textures created by Julek.  

Unlike his previous work, which saw the artist exploring a softer side of weird, śpie is an album that shows no mercy at all. It is a fascinating nightmare that, within its modest 48 minute runtime, oozes panic and anxiety, giving the impression of a never ending chase in which we're being persecuted by someone -or something- who is not too far behind us; those moments of sheer intensity created by the frenetic industrial rhythms might as well represent the effect of feeling our persecutor's dangerously close grasp over our shoulders and judging by the morbid climax on the last song and the abrupt way the album comes to an end, one may infer that the outcome was not favorable for one of the two parties involved.

     The initial track of this LP might be a little deceiving but at the same it can be considered as a synopsis of the whole album since it encompasses a lot of the elements that we will find randomly scattered throughout every song. We can hear guttural samples processed through a metallic filter, an arpeggiated loop that sounds like if it is being payed in a celesta, a brief detour to a catchy -and discernible- rhythm and heavy pulsating beats; everything is balanced and the transitions sound organic amidst all the chaos they’re ensuing, avoiding coming off as too overwhelming. The author is introducing himself in a very elegant way. 

This can be said about every song. The connection between each section is seamless, albeit done in an array of bizarre ways. For instance, there is a sound effect which can be heard more than once, a reversed or suction sound similar to the "Warp" function on a Giga Delay pedal; it can be heard almost immediately at the beginning of “papapapapapapapapppp” and it evokes the feeling of being absorbed to an alternate dimension. In other instances, it sounds like a mutation process after which, the song is no longer the same ("ja osoba która lubie"). Even though it appears quite a lot, it doesn't always sound the same and it doesn't have the same purpose between songs, thus it never becomes tedious or tiring. Plus, it makes the songs that don’t have a lot of changes sound more dynamic.

“Ja tata” is a terrifying cut which might remind us of early Yves Tumor combined with Puce Mary. It is also one of those pieces that manage to sound longer than it actually is, by having a lot of elements sown into it, but again, it succeeds in displaying Ploski’s great sense of balance. It is quite compelling how this album can be so jarring and disjointed, while keeping its equilibrium at the same time; it is one of the weirdest juggling acts ever.

A lot of listeners might be put off by the obvious similarities to other projects (there is a song that sounds like “Omgyjya-Switch 7”) and it would be understandable. But let’s not forget that this the work of an emerging artist and this is his second attempt at leaving his mark in the music world. The possibilities he can take from here are quite vast, and he still has enough of a learning curve ahead of him to keep trying and failing until he stumbles into a sound that is truly his own. In the meantime, this will have to do, and if for many this may sound like a failed attempt, that just leaves me more eager to hear what success sounds like in this guy’s hands.