Kinga Glyk
Real Life

I stumbled upon this album by chance, perhaps because it was briefly presented to me as something it is not, but which in fact it ends up being: a Jazz album.

I hate labels... mind you, they're convenient for being understood, but I could very well say it's a Jazz album, only to say shortly after that it's not a Jazz album... for convenience, I'll invent (I think) a new term, just to reach a (albeit fictional) conclusion.

It's an electronic Jazz album... using more commonly accepted terms: "NuJazz"... a fusion between Jazz and electronic music, in short.

Kinga Glyk actually started out as a bassist, and indeed the bass is the central instrument, permeating every track, seemingly always in the background, but in reality serving as the backbone of the whole work. It would be like asking Gilmour not to throw in a guitar, come on!

After an initial band with her father (a vibraphonist, and you'll hear the influence of this wonderful instrument) and brother, she doesn't really take off... she remains known locally in Poland and nothing more.

In 2017, with her first album "Dream", she starts to gain more recognition, but she's still a Jazz bassist, trying to bring to life virtuosities that are certainly interesting, but not captivating enough.

"Feelings" in 2019 did not seem to have much success; in fact, I found it rather uninteresting, even though the first two albums already featured electronic inserts alongside more classic Jazz, which in hindsight were promising.

The most interesting work indeed comes this year, "Real Life", where Kinga Glyk starts anew, leaves the Jazz school aside, and truly does Jazz... innovates.

I generally don't like electronics because it strips instruments of their identity, giving everyone more or less the same voice... and generally, it's an alternation of different keyboards with different sounds from the same root. That's how it is, objectively. However, I must say, all the tracks on this album are particularly intricate, rich in different sounds, cradled by a bass always in the background and with a STUNNING Aerophon... the Aerophon is a sort of electronic sax (which, described this way, would make even me cringe, as much as I love sax) that sounds a bit like an old synthesizer. The Aerophon is the soul and harmonic melody of all the tracks, from the first to the last, but the apex of this instrument is "Unfollower", which I will elaborate on later.

(Unfortunately, Casey Benjamin, who played it, passed away in March).

Perhaps I took it for granted, but it's an instrumental album, so the focal element is the interplay of the sounds, their particularity... always creating a harmonious whole that flows, going by quickly without even noticing, between tracks more centered on keyboards and tracks like "Who Cares" that reflect the old Jazz school in rhythms and sound echoes, a kind of Jazz-Funk here, while always remaining within the NuJazz theme of the entire album.

Both this and "Island" and "Swimming In The Sky" slightly recall the atmosphere of 90's Nintendo video games, which I never liked, but here I particularly appreciated (the virtuosity of Aerophon in "Swimming In The Sky" is very beautiful).

Having understood the main features of the work, I now want to focus on four particularly noteworthy observations:

I would never have expected a drum solo, even a decently good one (certainly not Ian Paice or other sacred monsters), in "Island", which in fact is the track that summarizes all the focal characteristics of the album: ambient soft keyboards, bass as a backbone, Aerophon making melody with intricate virtuosity... and drum solo, in what is the most ambient track.

Very beautiful "Sadness Does Not Last Forever" and above all very adhering to the title: first minute of stereo organ and then bit by bit the drums and electronics enter, transforming it into a more Funk track.

The Vibraphone in "Not Real" is particularly beautiful, very much in Harry Potter style. In general, the environment it projects in the first minute is very beautiful, with a radical change afterwards that reminds me of the music from Rally games when I was little.

It's time to talk about the masterpiece... "Unfollower":

It begins with a marked bass melody, in the wake of the dear old White Stripes and percussion, but the magic comes in when the Aerophon starts to play (very Montecarlo Nights)... it opens up like a flash of light in a melody I perceive as deeply melancholy and moving, then reverts back to the same marked bass line until the next, identical chorus, and you're there waiting for it, as if it’s the thing you want most in the world, impatient to hear it again... and it comes...

To make you understand what emotions it provokes in me (I was about to say "close your eyes", but then rightly you can't read), imagine yourself in a desert, at sunset, with huge skyscrapers on the horizon creating the skyline; at some point an atomic bomb falls and you see the whole scene through a slight mirage, in slow motion: a huge mushroom that you know in a few seconds will reach you bringing an end to everything. Here, that instant between the wonder and the melancholy of the awareness that everything is about to end, remembering everything you've lived with a tear rolling down your cheek, hit by a light wind that gradually becomes stronger and stronger, until it's an energy that ends everything; but at the same time a sense of freedom, breathing deeply to accept that you were what you were, without regrets.

An instant that lasts forever.

This is "Unfollower", and this is "Real Life", an ambient, NuJazz album that strangely managed to give me emotions and cradle them from the second track to the last.