Mazut
Dirt Collector
POLAND ROPE WORM RW6 C.D. (2025)
Sometimes it can be a good thing when a group’s aspirations fail to hit the bullseye – like for example Polish avant electronics unit Mazut. Back in the mid-twenty-tens, the duo of Pawel Starzec and Michel Turowski were spurred into live/recording activity with a love for Sheffield’s Cabaret Voltaire and Sydney, Australia’s Severed Heads but, were somehow unable to emulate the Cab’s furtive transmissions from dystopia central or the Heads’ warped beat-driven collages. After a critical re-evaluation process came a slew of downloads and cdrs which were quickly followed by the more substantial “Atlas” and “Promień” c.d.s (B.D.T.A. and Positive Regression Records respectively).
You have to warm to a project that reveals a large chunk of self-deprecation in its D.N.A. I’ve only just discovered that the duo’s monniker refers to “a heavy, low quality fuel oil” a.k.a. “a bottom-of-the-barrel residue…” And while sifting through the accompanying promo ephemera, I came across this tongue-in-cheek caveat…”If you play “Dirt Collector” by Mazut at 23.30 at a new year’s eve party, exactly at midnight, you will have some nice time alone…” After those Big Ben chimes and the interminable boogie-woogie of mine host Jools Holland, one simply has to welcome “Dirt Collector” like a long lost friend. So raise a glass to…(in no particular order) “The Original Sound”s murky squelch which carries with it a set of nuclear warning samples pinpointing the city of Sheffield! Strangely enough, “the last voice you’ll ever hear” (unquote) which belonged to British actor Patrick Allen (found on Frankie’s “Two Tribes”) is nowhere to be found. “Paranoid Park” meanwhile, is a place in which I’d be very wary of even dallying on its boundary paths. Its neurotic backdrop of I.D.M. rhythmatics and clattering synthi-drum barrage suggest that even the most adventurous clubber should sit this one out. 100% authentic drums and percussives (c/o BNNT’s Daniel Szwed) really make their snares and hi-hats felt in “Shrouded in Obscurity” and “Slow Cancellation of the Future”. These for me, work as the most successful tracks on show. The former’s Arabic wind instrument samples (?) come as an intriguing precursor to the latter’s platform for a bewildering mash-up of distorted vocal blatherings.
Here then, we stumble upon a series of classic industrial tropes, served up with a refreshing side dish of deadpan humour, which makes for unusual, but in this case, complimentary bedfellows. Heartily endorsed.