GARGANTUA
Kotegarda - music turned upside down
Kotegarda is the second album by the Polish band Gargantua. Gargantua's debut CD (Gargantua, Ars Mundi, 2003)
signaled the band's place at the fringe of the tradition of Rock In Opposition, avant progressive rock and linguistic
poetry. The new album goes a long way further: it is the outcome of uncompromising and consistent search for
eclectic and recognizable sound idiom that fuses rock, modern music, jazz and literature.
Kotegarda features compact, meticulously thought-out compositions that use techniques usually associated with jazz
and chamber music (dissonance, frequent changes of odd rhythms, polyrhythms, mixed meters, unorthodox
harmonies, altered chords and polyphony). Careful listener will detect affiliations with contemporary music rock
(Stravinski, Reich) i rock experimentation (Fripp, Firth, Univers Zero, krautrock).
Gargantua's new music provides a mind-boggling abundance of colors, moods and compositional schemes. Dense
polyphonic structures are interwoven with seemingly harmless, "mock-heroic" tunes, morphing into either jagged
interplay of guitar and replicated violin, or irreverent choral enunciations, electronic soundscapes and piano staccatos.
Carnival fights here with Lent, seriousness with the grotesque, corporeality with sterility, baroque excess with ascetic
introspection. This is a truly "Pantagruelian" vision of music that is self-conscious, self-mocking and highly goaloriented.
And surprising as it may sound, its intransigent, mathematical logic does not prevent the Polish artists from
playing with a sharp rocky edge.
***
In 2003 Gargantua, then consisting of Marcin Borowski (drums) Justyn Hunia (keyboards), Leszek Mrozowski (bass) and Bartek Zeman (guitar) recorded their debut album. Called simply Gargantua, it was released on Ars Mundi Records.
In 2004 Justyn Hunia left the band. Soon, however, pianist Pawel Kubica and violinist Tylda Ciolkosz joined in.
In the new line-up, Gargantua is preparing tracks for the new album, to appear early in 2006.
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