Czary i Czarty

With last issue’s Devil’s Fiddle album, the recent Daj Ognia disc with its dance-of-death track and this Wicher release, maybe you’ll see a feature in these pages about the satanic movement in Polish folk before too long. The title Czary i Czarty (Witchcraft and Devils) is the name of a book by satirical Polish writer Julian Tuwim who published several works on Polish witchcraft and superstition. Words from the book are screamed over an extreme metal background.

This is the debut album of Wicher trio and they claim all their instruments are traditional – mainly bowed and plucked with long drones, but there are electronics too and real shouts and groans. The video of ‘Nieś Biesie Nieś!’ (Carry, Devil, Carry!) shows figures in the distance revelling round a bonfire. The opening ‘Gusła’ (Witchcraft) grows out of a thunderstorm and is based on plainchant. It’s repetitive, ritualistic and deliberately enigmatic – the musicians are only identified as M, D and P. ‘Imagine a mad dance with devils and demons, between old and dark trees, somewhere in the middle of nowhere,’ they say. It’s more about the state of mind than the music. Welcome to ‘black folk.’