Konrad Kucz is probably known by a large number of people as one of the members and producer of the now defunct Futro group. Together with Wojtek Appel and Kasia Nowicka [Novika] Kucz created quite casual pop, the sound of which was supposed to refer to fashionable avant-pop ideas or other chill-outs. The effects were assessed differently, the band released one big self-titled album and disappeared from the "club" market. I will risk saying that for people who are not related or not interested in strictly electronic Polish music, the facts just cited constitute the whole knowledge about Konrad Kucz. I would like to add that also for me the artist's name has been associated only with the achievements of Futro - and this is a very "dangerous" association.
This state of affairs is probably the result of my distrustful attitude towards the achievements of Polish el-music and the artist's short flirtation with - let's call it - Polish club music, which, unfortunately, is still far from the achievements of European stars. So we have two rather unfortunate circumstances, we also have a surprise caused by the label Requiem Records, which has just released a double compilation album by Konrad Kucz. Let us add: Konrad Kucz, a soloist. Together with "Nagrania bardzo archiwalne", we also receive a small booklet, from which we learn a little more about the artist's achievements to date and his artistic development. So we find out that Kucz made his first compositional steps back in the 1980s, fascinated by the sound of Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream. We learn that the first concert of Kucz took place in 1988, and today he has quite a lot of original tapes and albums to his credit. The latest album contains recordings - as the title suggests - that are very archival, from different periods of the artist's work, recorded in different circumstances - either at a concert or at home [we also receive the last studio works]. As the whole is a cross-section of the 20 years of Konrad Kucz's musical work, it would seem that these very different fragments of the musician's activity, collected on one album, will create an incoherent and tiring mixture; nothing could be further from the truth - both albums were quite carefully thought out and "arranged": the first, apart from early experiments with sound, contains more lively pieces by Kucz - for example the hit-comical "Autostrada", containing a fragment of a song recorded in ancient times by the Aura group, celebrating "XXX lat Szkoły Ruchu Drogowego MO" ( "XXX Years of MO Road Traffic School") [must listen]. The first album also has a few downtempo accents, for example the track "EB", related to the "futro" activity of Kucz [about which, by the way, there is not a word in the book]. So if the first disc of the album can be treated in terms of an "interesting collage", the second album is a very coherent, intriguing journey into the strictly ambient regions of Kucz's work. And again it is not audible that the time frame of this compilation is 1988-2002 - maybe because the oldest recordings, while preparing to release the collection, gained a new, fresh quality in the studio? Anyway - CD No. 2 is a portion of perfectly played and arranged ambient music. Listen, definitely.

As you can see - you can write a lot about Konrad Kucz's music, and more importantly - a lot of good things. For fans of Requiem Records it will be another noteworthy item in the catalog of this label, for fans of ambient it will be a valuable load of "blurred" sounds and spaces, also people looking for good recordings from the border of downtempo / trip-hop should find something interesting here. I keep coming back to the song "TITATI", thanks to which I can practice the basics of telegraphy; long live Polski Związek Krótkofalowców (the "Polish Microwave Association”) Those who want to know why - I invite you to reach for this album.

_{Krzysztof Stęplowski http://www.nowamuzyka.prv.pl}

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For those who know Konrad Kucz only from the production of the Futro band, this album can be a big surprise. Not everyone knows that he is one of the pioneers of electronic music in Poland - he started out in the mid-1980s and for the next decade belonged to a small group of the leading experimenters of this trend in the country. The compilation of recordings from the rich output of Kucz perfectly illustrates the changes that have undergone his work over the past 20 years.
The real discovery is the fact that the artist's music grows from ... industrial roots. Fascinated by the achievements of Throbbing Gristle, young Kucz created dark preparations in which the deformed sounds of keyboards and guitars were mixed with a monotonous, almost trance background, mechanical beats and flooded voices ("Macte", "Kiepura", "Eufemizmy"). The second source of early fascination with music was the work of classical electronics performers from the "Berlin School" - from Tangerine Dream to Klaus Schulze. This is evidenced by the recording "Opera Nova", in which Kucz managed to create cosmic sounds based on minimalist means. It is a prelude to the artist's monumental productions from the mid-1990s, in which almost orchestral arrangements, focused on the sound of the organ and slow synthesizer passages, meet with melodies arising from highlander folklore ("Siwe mgły", "Ponad szczytami", "Wietrze, wietrze wiosenny", "Powrót").
The next chapter in Kucz's work are recordings inspired by Christian mysticism. The Polish artist contrasts the boldly difficult path of religious contemplation with the occult fascinations of the contemporary avant-garde, illustrating it with beautiful, static compositions with dignified streams of synthesizer sounds in the style of classic ambient in the atmosphere of Brian Eno’s works. The majestic tone of the composition and the magnificent spaces, obtained sometimes thanks to the recordings in churches ("Organio", "Sanctissi", "Vox Angelica II" and "Vox Angelica III") are delightful.
And finally the effects of Kucz's contact with new electronics - recordings that are as if untrained (?), A bit naive, drawing on the aesthetics of kraftwerk electro-pop (the most interesting in this set is "Music light and pleasant", "Tititati" and "Autostrada"), with archetypal techno ("Monica"), and even exotic ambient-dub, set on broken rhythmic structures ("Jelenie", "EB").
This discography of Kucz, shortened to two discs, shows him as an artist who is constantly searching - drawing inspiration both from tradition and the avant-garde of the genre. The most interesting in his work are those recordings that seem to flow from the deepest layers of emotions of the music - typically ambient, with a contemplative character or combining folklore and electronics. In the others, you can also find many interesting sounds - after all, we are dealing with an unconventional artist. The album published by Requiem is an excellent introduction to a deeper understanding of his work.

_{Paweł Gzyl http://www.vivo.pl/gaz-eta}