Finally. After two short free netlabel releases, acclaimed in these pages, Tomasz Bien is back with a full length that - i really had my fingers crossed before hitting the play button - fulfills my expectations.
It's quiet, real quiet, it's mostly contemplative, it's melancholic, it's delicate, appeasing, cottony, sometimes of almost childlike innocence and often moving. Main ingredients are rhodes piano, guitar, Tomasz's voice and melodica, with a few loops of other synth sounds.
After thirty listens to this album I'm still under charm, discovering slowly the subtlety that lays below and behind his compositions, what's suggested or almost unsaid, this translucent aura of mystery which floats and appears slowly as soon as the music plays.
“Winter and Summer” is not a good record, it's a great and major one, at least for me, at least from the vital space I am in. It's slow and minimal but so much things are said here between the lines, it's evocative, nothing seems to be free or used as a simple tool.
What I prefer the most is the dark side of this record, the reason one it's not simply gentle, empty and soft like the vast majority of folktronica / indietronica releases. If i compare this album with the previous ep's, Tomasz Bien has opened the door towards more depth here and this quality is present from one end to the other. It's tempting to use the word sadcore the same way as we can use it for the debut releases of Havergal or Annelies Monseré or for the two Halkyn eps.
“Elephant” opens the album on a dreamy point of view, piano rhodes like early morning mist, glowing light trough half-whispered sleepy vocals and bucolic notes from a melodica.
Next in line, the instrumental “Sound Check” is simply staggering and breathtaking. Acoustic guitar playing a loop and a synth layer behind with a few lost sounds. It is extremely moving and delicate, something that recalls me of early Owen and Red House Painters almost, in a more fragile form, where sadness is diffuse, nostalgia of the temporary moment something evanescent but essential.
Soft and delicate, “Tonight” is a nice lullaby before a darker and colder “Early Morning Life” where we are invited to make a halt and slow down. Both are quite nice, in fact there are no bad tracks at all on this album, everything is pertinent even if at various levels.
“Miniature” would be the perfect soundtrack of a melancholic nursery rhyme.
On “Drawing”, Tomasz adds a kind of metallic filter on his voice, it could be anesthetic but strangely it works perfectly and adds a welcome crudeness to the song. It's similar to the ambivalence of snowflakes, beautiful with their crystals but at the same time, cold and wintry. And “two am at winter” pictures these, flowing slowly in the countryside under pale moonlight.
“Shame” is probably the most accomplished songs of the whole album but the video made for it is revealing too, full of nostalgia and of a naive innocence preserved by melancholy, So Quiet is closer here to some of the archetypes of songwriting and of its emotional narrative potentialities.
“September 2” could be a lost Empress song. One precious instrumental later, “Saturday” and we are ready for the last track, another promising one, but “where's winter there's home” doesn't completely reach its promising heights, due mainly to some toy sounds that brings us back to the childlike but somewhat sterile universe of twee folktronica.
“Summer and winter” is an impressive album and a big step forward for Tomasz Bien, it confirms the first impressions I had with his music but also opens doors for new rooms to be visited. The depth of his work is much more perceptible, it makes me feel better and very interested in what he might develop from here. If we can learn something from him here, we are left with new questions and the certitude he is, someone talented and highly sensitive, to follow closely.
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raw translation
: recommandé par dérives
