Last heard from Polish percussionist Mi?osz P?kala on his 2017 album Works for Percussion and Electro-Acoustic Devices with Magda Kordylasi?ska. The duo tackled various modern composers such as Steve Reich, Thymme Jones, Felix Kubin and Frank Zappa, combining percussion instruments with electronic sound. On today’s solo record by Mi?osz, Monopercussion (BÔ?T RECORDS BR 1043), he applies similar techniques to six works by contemporary composers selected by himself: Cezary Duchnowski, Javier Alvarez, S?awomir Wojciechowski, Rafa? Zapa?a, Pawe? Mykietyn, and Felix Kubin. These are rather less populist than the previous selection, which could be considered a change of direction towards more avant-garde and challenging materials, and most of the names in the list are Polish. It’s also testament to P?kala’s single-minded approach that he concentrates mostly on one percussion instrument per piece – the Chinese cymbal, the frame drum, the vibraphone…one of them showcases that most over-looked of all the percussion family, the humble triangle.
P?kala makes plain his profound connection to these physical objects, stressing that “closeness and interaction are very important…I am not fond of superficiality…I have come to feel instruments just beneath my fingertips or beneath the heads of my beaters.” It’s refreshing to see this degree of faith in physical objects, at a time when we’re in constant danger of being seduced by the digital and the virtual. That said, the works are enhanced to some degree by electronic music, as before, but the aim here is to “expand the capacities” of the acoustic instruments, so these electronic sounds certainly do not dominate the recordings. It’s a very patchy set though. I enjoyed the slightly apocalyptic tendencies of Cezary Duchnowski’s ‘Sequenza I’, but felt underwhelmed by the remainder of this album; the shape and direction of each composition is very hard to make out for some reason, and I suspect it’s because Mi?osz P?kala is not much of a skilled interpreter of other people’s ideas. Every time, the dynamic of the work gets stalled somewhere, and can’t get back into gear.
I don’t doubt the sincerity of his conviction when he expresses his preference for “deep and developed relationships”, and his connection with his chosen instruments is evidently built on much practice and “many years’ research into a variety of percussion techniques”. Yet very little of that force makes its way onto the record, and we meander through long passages where he merely indulges his technique a little too much. P?kala uses compositions as a vehicle for his percussion approach; but I think he should spend more time understanding the composers’ intentions and attempt to communicate something of the meaning. (03 January 2018)