A small pile of
Karbido releases was amongst the booty from a recent fact-finding tour of Poland. Unfortunately all this stuff got covered with mustard, home-made jam, and Polish beer when a Homeland Security agent had a temper tantrum unpacking one of the cases. Cleaning them all off and then finally slipping them into a CD player, it was a pleasant surprise to find the self-titled
Karbido item on the high-tech Fonografika label to be a quite pleasant fusion jazz and progressive rock outing with lots of hot guitar licks from Igor Gawlikowski and Piotr Dominski.
The former was a member of the
Karbido band at the time of this recording, the latter one of several special guests, including a pianist and reed player. Drummer Pawel Czepulkowski and bassist Marek Otwinoski fill out the group with an emphasis on the nifty five-string and fretless basses on Otwinoski's part. Both instrumental and vocal tracks are in the program, the singing a dry intoning of lyrics that will take on as a matter of course an attractive incoherency to listeners who do not understand the Polish tongue. A traditional piece from Belarus is a natural showcase for Vlad Kwasnicki on alto saxophone and clarinet. Interesting multimedia material is available when the disc meets up with a CD-R drive. ~ Eugene Chadbourne