Paul Wirkus

Polish drummer/producer Paul Wirkus’ fourth album engenders urgency. Opening up to methodically chopped melodic patterns, an arrhythmic structure couples with tentative strides in structural song development, providing us an aesthetic effect equivalent to the Who’s "Baba O’Reilly,” albeit without guitar or vocals. That the structural progression of most songs on the record display at once signs of great ambition and contemplation gives it a satisfying sense of direction. "Kocham” deliberates where opener "View Finder” manipulates the listener in wonder, while the faintest of sin tones hang in the background over teeter-tottering basic melodies. That said, the direction is sometimes curtailed by what comes off as Wirkus not knowing where to push his pieces in the end, and results in fade-outs and uncomfortable denouements. "Valore Energetico” could be Les Georges Leningrad jamming a Neutral Milk Hotel progression; "Dogs After Flight” incorporates the scratchy rotation of vinyl in futurist opposition to the softly shrieking modulations beneath it. At half time, "Nie Kocham” vocals are the last trick up Wirkus’ stick as far as different levels of media, but "Exoten” takes the form of an atonal chord deconstruction, which bows out gracefully in two minutes and change. Aesthetically, as well as structurally, Wirkus is glowing with every track. "Deformation Professionnelle” strikes like a sundown standoff, lamenting the sorry reality of it all. Closer "Terres Fortes” sprawls latent key lines between dense chords, enveloping gentle, post-mortem resolutions. It’s as if with each work Wirkus plays like it’s his last, and intensifies his statements with appropriate vigour.