Expedition to the Lost World, Part II: Spring

Jarek Adamów is a Polish muti-instrumentalist – accordion, clarinet, hurdy-gurdy and many other things – with a strong interest in the raw tradition. He digs into it deep here with a small local folk group Sami Swoi (three women, one man) from Kopyłow, right on the Ukrainian border. There’s absolutely no connection with current events, Adamów is just fascinated by their old-style singing and spent months with them. He admits that ‘the sound sometimes is not perfect, but we don’t live in a perfect world.’

These are raw field recordings with simple but effective accordion accompaniment. A lot of the songs are solo, in a few the voices combine in unison (when they hit the tune accurately). Adamów made Expedition to the Lost World, Part I in 2006. That was titled Winter, this is titled Spring, reflecting when they were recorded and ‘the feelings inside of me and the singers.’ Some of the songs are very lively, like ‘Mary’, which is dance-like and includes foot-stamping and a primitive cymbal, but sounds like a spoon on a beer or vodka bottle. This is probably wonderful for Polish speakers with a serious interest in Polish folk song, but harder work for anyone else, although strangely absorbing.