Bartek Kujawski

The Wire (256)

Bartek Kujawski produces pile-ups of broken beats that teeter on brink of unintelligibility. Umpomat pushes the minimal Techno envelope to the outer reaches of abstract noise, yet retains a sense of childlike discovery and simple fun reflected in titles like "Loopop" and "Volksmusik", showing Kujawski to be as individual a voice in electronica as has been heard for some time.
The album spotlights a sort of brutalist pointlism, tracks built from percussive flecks of distortion fed into locked loops that rub against each other. What results is music whose central pulse is constantly compromised by conflicting, Ligeti-like rhythmic cycles. The most startling feature of the album is its unremittingly dry, bleak texture. Kujawski's palette is almost exclusively limited to distorted, abrasive sound, as if all the source material were created by rubbing contact mics over facial stubble. Where a harmonic element is introduced, it is either subjected to hideous digital abuse - as on "Hapy En.", in which what sounds like a barrel organ is mashed up royally - or obscured just as it begins to coalesce, as on "Loopop", whose toytown melody is viewed through a near opaque curtain of electronic coughs and splutters.
Yet somehow Umpomat is itchy and funky despite its uncompromisingly grey soundworld. It shares the same impish spirit as certain early Aphex tracks like "D-Scape" where the extremity of the processing destabilises the music's rhytmic chassis but can't halt its weird momentum. Genuinely bizarre, but rather loveable.
(Keith Moliné) - The Wire

Skug 62

"Not sponsored, not censored" prangt auf den neuen Mik-Alben. "Not commercial, not easy" wäre noch zu den Sounds hinzuzufügen. Allerdings geben sich diese Mühe, ins Ohr zudringen. Melodiefetzchen im Every-Day-Laptop-Blues? "Repeated Fall" jedenfalls ist auf der Höhe der Zeit und hat den Minimal-Techno-Hop intus. 8ROLEK aka Bartek Kujawski will also Popstar werden, aber macht er sich und uns nicht das Zuhören zu schwer? Zu vertrackt kommen die Sounds aus zwei verlinkten Laptops. Attraktion durch Abstraktion? Da kann halt 8rolek nur Star auf einer Miniebene sein.
Mit "Umpomat", einem Sammelsurium aus Lyrizismus und Aggression, ist er es mehr denn je. Der Steckdosenfolk "Volksmusik" ist übrigens recht poppig und das Album mag gar eine Mischmaschine sein, die Simples mit Abstrusem verbindet und mit Vorwitz aufbereitet Freude am Schaffen ist spürbar, die Ideen sprühen.
(Alfred Pranzl) - Skug

This is the first real CD by Bartek Kujawski aka 8Rolek, following two previous CDR releases for Mik Musik. Bartek builts his own software and plays with them on two laptops. As noted before (in Vital Weekly 353), one could say that 8Rolek operates in the fields of clicks and cuts, but unmistakenly he derives his own version out of it. Apperentely not interested in just a bunch of plug-ins or an all to strict 4/4 beat, but he builts out of disjointed elements, something that slowly builts an abstract rhythm, such as in 'Po-chaus'. What is particular noteworthy is the fact that many of his soundsource are really 'dry'. Maybe derived from electro-acoustic sources, sounds picked up by contact microphones or some such, this is for sure another start then many other clicks and cuts musicians would do. This sets 8Rolek aside from the rest and makes for sure an interesting release. Eleven powerful pieces herein, full of energy.
Nice indeed.
(FdW) - Vital Weekly