Words by Art Jefferson
Photography by Gene Glover
There is the Oscar Wilde quote which states “art imitates life far more than life imitates art”. Every piece of art that has been created by author, poet, producer, and designer Lukasz Polowczyk has been a marriage with experience, each as authentic as the breath of life itself. This is an art of growth, pain, understanding, and love. These are Polowcyzk’s documented scriptures of his journeys, accessible to the public, but ultimately that which serves as reference points for self reflection. Every sentence penned dripping with depth, every note played rising from the soul, every song delivered thought-provoking and stamped with sincerity.
When Berlin-based, New York City-raised Lukasz Polowcyzk released his project ‘aint about me’, it was a dedication of sorts – to the moments that helped to shape him to the people who have played intricate parts throughout his various chapters of life. Whilst this spoken word album/book project showcased many personal moments, Polowcyzk released it without his name, indeed making it…not about him. Created with jazz musician Jan Wagner, the acclaimed work was heartfelt, honest, and possibly one of the most important works to be released within the past decade.
Lukasz Polowcykz’s latest project Noise in the Key of Life, a title play on Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, is an instrumental album crafted with field recordings and musicians Simon Spiess, Gianpaolo Camplese, and Tobias Preisig playing in free form. The tracks are meditative, at times jarring, at times peaceful, but every moment entrancing. This is an album that embodies a stillness, embracing that which surrounds, fostering a state and space of peace. The sonics of daily life become an orchestration of music, a soundtrack to mentally travel inwards. An accompanying book features text and photos with designs by Animisiewasz. Noise in the Key of Life is a glorious reflection of Polowczyk continuing to ascend creatively, reaching new heights of thought, sound, and self.
To me, there are a number of juxtapositions within the orchestrations of this project – city juxtaposed with nature, the idea of noise juxtaposed with jazz, etc, but they all reach a meeting point of coexistence and cohesive beauty. How would you define this particular record or should we not define it at all and let it simply flow and have the listeners come to their own interpretation?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – That’s a wonderful way of putting it: that it’s not only a serious of negotiations, but that it’s also an assertion of the possibility of a harmonious coexistence of extremes or opposites. I would also add that the underlying tension within this work is, of course, that between how we choose to define music and where we decide that it ends and noise begins. For me, personally, every sound has the potential to become music or be heard as such, you just need to listen to it with the intention of hearing it. Hence, this line is subjective and arbitrary, on occasion, defined by cultural presets. Which brings me back to your question: How people will experience this piece is completely contingent on where they will choose to draw that line.
In relation to the idea of meditation is that of self exploration. Have you unearthed aspects of the self that you haven’t in the past through your previous work?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – Absolutely! First of all, when I started experimenting with field recording that was also when I started to meditate regularly for the first time in my life. I take it for granted now, but getting to a place where I’m now able to anchor myself in the moment, and my life is framed by the joy that I get from being present – this took a lot of work! It still does! When I was in college, my professor used to tell us that meditation is not a a means to an end, but an end in itself! It took me almost 30 years to unpack that! Without my daily practice I don’t think I would have the ability to hear this wild music that we are all immersed in day in day out.
The title of this project is a play on Steve Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life. We’ve talked about my personal feelings regarding the orchestration of what can be deemed as noise with this work, being actually something of quite intricate musical arrangements. On a deeper level, could you say that this record is the Thict Nact Han style of getting one to see the beauty that lies beneath the overlooked or sometimes perceived mundane?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – When I’m in that space I’m humbled by how amazing everything is. Everything! The human body, the ad-lib choreography of a sunrise in the morning; the infinite expressions of nature with all these alien species, animals and plant life. The ugly stuff, too, becomes beautiful, if I’m tapped in. Like that old door to a decrepit apartment building overgrown with a thicket of tags or the peeling paint that resembles butterfly scales as seen under the microscope. The way a glass bottle exploded on the pavement – the cosmos of a pattern that it created and the way this pattern implies movement and force. That’s why I always say that it’s all about the frame and, of course, about being present. Because you have to have the clarity of mind to be able to see what’s in front of you.
The accompanying book to noise in the key of life reads like a diary. For every thought jotted, is it like a mantra of a appreciation? Could it also be looked at as a clearing of the mental palette?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – I think that it’s all of these things. When you awaken to the beauty around you, every expression is a mantra of appreciation as well as a heartfelt thank you. When you speak to your experiences and draw inspiration from them, because you are truly present to feast on them, everything becomes a diary entry. And when you’re anchored in the now and you’re using your art practice as this anchor, you can’t hold on to anything, you’re just moving with the mighty now – trying best as you can to keep up.
How did the feeling of love play a role in the creation of this project?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – I’m 47 now, so I can go on record and just say it: love is the end goal! The wonderful Joko Beck said this thing that stuck with me, during one of her lectures (I read the transcript), that we are defined by the quality of our relationships. All of our relationships! Do you want to live in a city that you hate? Do you want work a job you despise? Do you want to wake up next to someone who snuffs out your flame? Do you want to be subjected to music you can’t stomach 24-7? Do you hate the clothes you wear? Do you not like your body? Love should always be the barometer for you and your battery pack!
It would be remiss of me to not acknowledge the individual genius of the players who contributed to the record: Simon Spiess (saxophone),Tobias Preisig (violin) and Gianpaolo Camplese (drums). Were the rules of recording simply to go with whatever feeling was provoked in terms of compositions? And if so, does this hark back to the idea of organically feeding off of vibrations that provoke one to immediately go inwards to pull outwardly on the spot?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – They’re absolute beasts craft-wise, and they’re singular. Simon is so soulful and lyrical; and he got that Pharaoh / Coltrane thing on lock. Plus the spectrum! But he can also paint with texture alone, because he’s also a modular synth nerd. Tobias is a minimalist, usually very austere with his playing, but he can also craft these beautiful melodies or go orchestral with it when he throws down layers. Gianpaolo is my Milford Graves. He’s not interested in the metronomic, he’s like Basquiat behind the drums: painting these wild pictures.
Everything you hear was a first take, including the overdubs – that was the deal. What I wanted was for them to react to these alien soundscapes the same way they would have reacted to them if they were playing live and that’s what was thrown at them. And mind you, because they had to play to textures and implied rhythms or semi-regular pulses, it was really all on them to define the pocket and excavate the music from these soundscapes. Not a lot of musicians are capable of doing this: finding that hidden order in something that appears to be so random and alien on first contact.
When you look at your journey up to this point personally, creatively, etc, have you reached a place and space of peace?
Lukasz Polowcyzk – If peace is the ability to reframe whatever comes at you in a way that allows you to accept and integrate it into your being, then, yes, I think I found it. It’s never easy, but the imperative and this frame of mind is always in place. My “spiritual mother,” Maxine Freeland, used to say: “Life is like a sine wave, it has to go up and down. When it goes flat, you’re dead!” In other words, the only sensible way out that we have, if we want to live a fulfilling and joyous life, is saying yes to it all, as it comes!
https://noiseinthekeyoflife.bandcamp.com/releases
https://www.aintaboutme.com/