Marek Styczyñski - Cyber Totem [ Requiem Records - 2007]Cyber Totem's sonic landscape is wonderfully exotic, mystical and often very odd mixing together all manner of instruments from around the world -we have; Fujara from Slovakia, Kaval from Bulgaria, Fadno & Paska from Sweden and this list goes on with fourteen or so weird and wonderful instruments from all over the world. The eight tracks on offer fall somewhere between world music, ambience, drone, rhythmic work-outs, noise & the avant grade- with brief forays into funky touches and electroinca here and their, but for the most part this feels very earthy and real. It brings to mind trips over vast desert plains lined by snow topped mountains, or ambling along overgrown temple walkways in the middle of a vast rain forest, or strange street performance in overcrowded market places from other lands. In places it does dance close to being a little new-age, but thankful never really gets there. The album seems to get stranger and denser as it goes along, feeling like your slipping father and father into opium hazed dreams of other lands, but none of the sounds or instruments are ever used just purely for their sound, there place for maximum sonic effect and atmosphere and clearly played with experience and talent, there also all mainly played by Styczyñski himself too. A heady and hallucinogenic trip around the audio world where Styczyñski shows he has a real talent for creating atmospheric, strange and hypnotic music. Roger Batty
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