"Around borderline" is a continuation of the path marked on the previous album. This time, the artist reveals two dependent worlds to the listener. One tasteful, warm, abstract ambient of various murmurs, whispers with melodies played on the guitar and the piano. The second one is embedded in it, full of anxiety, wandering melancholy, industrial coldness, perfectly influencing the listener's imagination. The artist does not limit himself to the classical frames of the genre, he goes beyond them and finds inspiration from Legendary Pink Dots, Holger Czukay or Art Zoyd.

The consistency with which Piotr Jurczak has been exploring the space of electronic sounds since his debut "Race Against Time" for Requiem in 2002 is surprising. Having made two albums for Soulworm in the meantime ("With Your Ear Down To The Ground" and "The Path At The Parting Of The Ways"), he enters a new dimension of penetrated territories on his latest album. The most important determinant of his premiere compositions seems to be their spaciousness. It is created at the junction of two worlds: a discrete background, rustling with electronic microphones and sparkling with tones of acoustic instruments strained through a laptop sieve placed in the foreground. This is what happens in the opening album "Living Shades", where the kind of background that lives on its own becomes the basis for the slowly rolling waves of soothing synth sounds. In creating the original background, Jurczak sometimes uses the sounds of the surroundings - for example in the rainy "Alien Territory" or the seaside "Still Be Free". With his usual dexterity, however, he manages to blend them into electronic tissue, so that the whole appears to be one organism.
When it comes to processing acoustic sounds, Jurczak is far from Fennesian radicalism. Despite the laptop processing, you can hear that individual sounds are emitted from specific instruments - pianos ("Alien Territory", "Slowly Walk Forward") or guitars (hidden track). And they too are surrounded by electronics - muted, landscape, sometimes almost psychedelic, as if taken from a movie soundtrack ("Other Side Of Us").
In some moments of the album, Jurczak's music catches some internal pulsation - enhanced with bass, but hidden deep behind, like in Gas' memorable productions ("Alien Territory").
"Around Borderline" captivates with the grace of sounds presented on it. Listening to the album is like stepping out of the river of time and standing next to it - in a space filled with voices of another world coming from a distance.
_{Paweł Gzyl}

CDr format