Gajek's debut album, Restless Shapes, has been pegged as something of a concept album, and in true form, as an artist signed to Monkeytown Records, it's hard to distinguish a movement or direction the album and artist adhere to. This isn't necessarily a bad thing when you consider the fluidity of music production and the roster of artists Monkeytown houses. Broken into 21short tracks, or three much longer movements ranging between seven and 14 minutes each, Gajek has produced an album that could accurately be described as introverted, as it plods its way through 35 minutes of music minimal in its composition and vaguely experimental in its undertaking.
The movements — "Curved Engines," "Restless Water Shapes" and "Moving Glasses" — quietly and lengthily build into ten-plus-minute pieces, but its challenging to find a thread that opens the tracks up to something bigger. Instead, they grow in length without gaining depth or substance, often reaching their close without much notice. Gajek's Restless Shapes is a good fit for the label it's landed on, but its foray into an entirely atmospheric realm seems to stunt its experimental exploration.
(Monkeytown)The movements — "Curved Engines," "Restless Water Shapes" and "Moving Glasses" — quietly and lengthily build into ten-plus-minute pieces, but its challenging to find a thread that opens the tracks up to something bigger. Instead, they grow in length without gaining depth or substance, often reaching their close without much notice. Gajek's Restless Shapes is a good fit for the label it's landed on, but its foray into an entirely atmospheric realm seems to stunt its experimental exploration.