Year: 2024
Label: Zoharum

“Lo fi distorted electronic beat” the album cover itself helpfully describes Polish Escape From Warsaw’s – a solo project of one Karol Su/Ka – album Transit/The Specter Of War. That saves us a lot of trouble!

It is a pretty vague descriptor though, isn’t it? So perhaps we still have more to do than just say whether this is, to use the scale established by Brad Majors in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, “good, bad or mediocre”…

As implied by the title, Transit/The Specter Of War consists of two parts: Transit divided into four tracks, and the rest of the album of seven further tracks. Apparently the tracks that constitute the first part are recorded entirely live, but even so, there’s no drastic, marked difference of style or sound between the two parts.

In essence, “Lo fi distorted electronic beat” as it appears on Transit/The Specter Of War is structurally and compositionally pretty stripped down electronics focusing on repeating, slowly evolving beats and synthesizer instrumentation that focuses more on looping rhythmics than melodies as such.

Paraphrasing just a bit, Zoharum’s promo sheet describes Transit/The Specter Of War as an album composed in a dub/electro framework with industrial psytrance leanings. This leads us a bit out of my area of expertise, but this still sounds about right. There is a definite industrial aesthetic to the soundscape, but the repetitive compositions structured more around minute variations rather than melodies certainly nod in the direction of trance.

Escape From Warsaw’s expression can quite safely be described as understated: there’s a focused straightforwardness to the compositions and structures, forsaking excess ornamentation and fluff for a stripped down sound that puts each sonic element into frame.

Some of the time it works, some of the time it doesn’t. Take Transit 3 for example, consisting of a very simple, looping structure and enervating bleeps and bloops: eight and a half minutes of that is just way too much. Makes one want to tear out their ears. But other tracks, such as Obóz and Syndrom BSE Dub make much more out of an essentially similar minimalist backbone and sparse sonic ornamentation.

The result is an album that certainly isn’t for everyone – fans of conventional pop/rock song structures (which does, certainly, include most metal!) might find this all too minimalist in approach. But undeniably, though a bit uneven, Transit/The Specter Of War contains a lot that is of interest for fans of this type of music. Aided by a clear, crisp and well-defined sound, Escape From Warsaw deliver their lo fi distorted electronic beat with skill.

Visit Karol Su/Ka’s Bandcamp or Facebook for Escape From Warsaw and more