OPIS WYDARZENIA
The musicians’ camp in Wrocław who have been growing and developing at the legendary Electro-Acoustic Beat Sessions at the now defunct Puzzle club (2012-2014). The closure of the club was an impulse for further development, which meant that the EABS band grew into one of the most important voices of the Polish jazz community in recent years. The audience had to wait almost three years for the debut EABS’ material, when the collective began to move away from hip-hop being understood as a genre in which the rapper plays the first fiddle. The uniqueness of EABS, however, is determined not only by the instrumental mastery and topicality of their language of expression, but also by hip-hop provenance and socio-political commitment.
In 2017, after the critically acclaimed debut album EABS Repetitions (Letters to Krzysztof Komeda), devoted to the less known works of Komeda, the band decided to keep the momentum and release two more vinyl records. The first (black), recorded live in Katowice – Repetitions (Letters to Krzysztof Komeda) Live at Jazz Club Hipnoza and the second (pink) recorded on tape and released on the British label 22a Music, entitled Kraksa / Svantetic, crowning their work with the so called “Komeda’s triptych”. The third (green) studio album received many great reviews in Poland and abroad.
Their original album, which appeared in mid-2018, could sound like. This time the band focused on Slavic mythology and Polish demonology, inviting British musician Tenderlonious to cooperation. The main inspiration for this album was the world famous „Slavic melancholy”, in which the band tried to find their own DNA. Slavic Spirits is an attempt to contact the spirit of their retrievably lost culture of Slavs living close to nature, as well as with their world burdened with serfdom, which, due to the illiteracy of the people, will never be thoroughly researched. It means that it can only be referred to through the language of emotions. Therefore, under the influence of the deliberations of many musicians, historians, journalists, writers and even psychotherapists, compositions that the band got out of the depths of their spirit and imagination began to appear very quickly.
Slavic Spirits EABS will play during the 10th edition of Ethniesy Festival.
So far EABS has played in such prestigious venues as Studio S1 in Warsaw, at the Shakespeare Theater in Gdańsk, at the NFM in Wrocław or the NOSPR hall in Katowice and at some of the largest Polish festivals such as Woodstock in Kostrzyn nad Odrą, Tauron Nowa Muzyka, OFF Festival in Katowice, Open’er in Gdynia and a concert tour at Męskie Granie. The band also played the main jazz festivals in Poland: Jazz nad Odrą, Warsaw Summer Jazz Days, Jazz Jamboree, Bielska Zadymka Jazzowa and many more. EABS has appeared many times in the UK, playing at vibrant London venues such as Total Refreshment Center, KOKO, Ronnie Scott’s as well as clubs in Manchester and Liverpool. They performed at XJAZZ in Berlin and such showcase festivals as Eurosonic (Groningen) or The BuSH Festival (Budapest). EABS also played several concerts in China (Xiamen, Guangzhou, Shenzhen). Later, the band also appeared in Hungary, Romania, Austria and Montenegro.
Band members:
Marek Pędziwiatr – piano, synths & vocal Paweł Stachowiak – bass Jakub Kurek – trumpet Olaf Węgier – tenor sax Marcin Rak – drums
Discography:
EABS – Puzzle Mixtape [Astigmatic Records, 2016] EABS – Repetitions (Letters to Krzysztof Komeda) [Astigmatic Records, 2017] EABS – Repetitions (Letters to Krzysztof Komeda) Live At Jazz Club Hipnoza (Katowice) [Astigmatic Records / More Music Agency, 2018] EABS ft. Tenderlonious – Kraksa / Svantetic [22a Music, 2018] EABS – Slavic Spirits [Astigmatic Records, 2019] EABS – Discipline of Sun Ra [Astigmatic Records, 2020] EABS – 2061 [Astigmatic Records, 2022]