Saturday, August 24, 2013

Atman - Ovoo

ATMAN: Piotr Kolecki, Marek Leszczynski, Marek Styczynski - various acoustic instruments from Asia, Europe & Australia, for example: dulcimer, singing bowls, didjeridoo, Slovakian fujara (wooden flute) and also instruments created by members of the group

#1 & 15: Atman & Tomasz Gulinski -vocal; Anna Nacher -vocal; Tomasz Radziuk -el. Kramer bass.

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01. Natural Landscapes [02:57]
02. Angklungs [02:39]
03. The Party [05:14]
04. Dance I [05:52]
05. Free Space I [00:59]
06. Fly - Why Not [02:44]
07. Dance II [03:14]
08. The Platform [02:46]
09. Free Space II [01:53]
10. Dance III [03:24]
11. Epilogue [03:46]
12. Ovoo [01:36]
13. Forest of Karma [09:54]
14. Wild Way [08:46]
15. The Talking Meadow (story) [16:12]

Tracks 1 & 15 recorded at Polish Radio Krakow, Poland in 1996.
Tracks 2-11 recorded at Polish Radio Gdansk, Poland in 1992.
Tracks 12-14 recorded at Private Studio, Krakow, Poland in 1993.
Fly Music

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Perhaps the most creative world-music ensemble in the world was the Polish ensemble Atman, whose Personal Forest (1993) and Tradition (1999) were collages of surreal blends of Eastern and Western music, in the vein of the Third Ear Band and the Incredible String Band. Atman's multi-instrumentalist Marek Styczynski and vocalist Anna Nacher started a new project, Projekt Karpaty Magiczne, or Magic Carpathians Project, devoted to an ambient, cosmic, jazz version of Atman's pan-ethnic music on Ethnocore II (2001)
...The album's tour de force is The Talking Meadow (15 minutes), a shamanic act which develops in a breeze of tibetan drones and native american rattles. Through ghostly echoes of didjeridu and buzzing of insect-like trumpets, an eerie melody on the dulcimer takes shape.
Tensegretty, with its bored, "new wavish", vocals and its heavy metal riffing, may represent a more rock-oriented direction (albeit still light-years away from your average alt-rock band).
http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/atman.html#ovo
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Atman (often Theatre of Sound Atman) was founded in 1975 in Cracow (PL) by Marek Styczynski and Jacek Zadora, from 1982 it was basiclly a trio: Styczynski, Marek Leszczynski & Piotr Kolecki but many musicians, dancers were invited to perform together with group. Atman was not only a band but a kind of alternative movement with their own label – FLY Music, workshops and festival Music in Landscape. Their sound is defined by using traditional, sometimes exotic, instruments, many flutes, different small percussions, violin, mandolin, cimbalom, didgeridoo, acoustic guitars and vocals also. Apart from obvious “ethnic” attitude Atman also didn’t forget about spontaneity of improvisation.
http://www.moteldemoka.com/2007/08/19/made-in-poland-pt2/

* in Italian:
Atman e` un gruppo polacco costruito attorno alle personalita` di Marek Styczynski, Marek Leszczynski e Piotr Kolecki. In passato hanno collaborato con diversi altri musicisti polacchi, in particolare la cantante Anna Nacher, a cui e` accreditato Tradycja (Freak Living Yourself). Atman e` fondamentalmente un gruppo di musica etnica strumentale, ma l'approccio e` alquanto diverso da quello della world-music. Il tono pacato e austero con cui dozzine di strumenti esotici (e alcuni costruiti dai musicisti stessi) vengono amalgamati ricorda semmai le partiture ambientali o le suite di Steve Roach (senza l'elettronica, ovviamente).

Atman sta proponendo la world-music piu` intellettuale di tutti i tempi; sebbene radicata nei ritmi e nelle melodie del mondo, la musica folk di questo gruppo appare tanto austere, tanto complessa, tanto sofisticata e in definitiva tanto ambiziosa quanto la musica d'avanguardia.

...Wild Way cerca la trance con il suo strimpellio meccanico, le sue nuvole di flauti, le sue piogge di campanelli, i suoi barriti di trombe...
...Il tour de force dell'album e` rappresentato da The Talking Meadow (15 minuti), un atto sciamanico che si sviluppa in un abrezza di droni tibetani e rantoli amerindi. Attraverso echi spettrali di didjeridu e ronzio di trombe, il dulcimer da forma ad una lugubre melodia in Tensegretty, che e` caratterizzato da annoiati vocalismi new wave e da un riffing heavy metal e potrebbe rappresentare un orientamento piu` verso il rock (anche se lontano anni luce dal tipico gruppo alt-rock).
http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/atman.html#ovo

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#14: Wild Way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3l5adloMks