French players Olivier & Frédéric Charlot perform and record as Maninkari, using this name for their acoustic percussion-rich music – we have also heard them as Sphyxion on the Polish Zoharum label, where they brew dark electronic tea under that name. Here they are with L’Océan Rêve Dans Sa Loisiveté 4th Session (ROPE WORM RW11) on another Polish label. I always enjoy the delicate and unusual sound they make, especially making use of less-frequently heard instruments such as the cymbalom, but I wish they’d apply a little more structure to their intricate work. These brothers have a real gift for improvising with each other and can almost play together as seamlessly as a single entity, but there isn’t quite enough dynamic force or development in each track. This is in spite of the very dramatic moods that inspire their playing; each piece appears to be happening by candlelight, involving midnight intrigues, open windows, and flowing curtains flapping in the wind.
Daniel Szwed recently noted with his Splinter album for this same label, which was a set of duo collaborations to enrich his percussion work. Here he is again with Standard Cap (ROPE WORM RW12), a session which originally surfaced on cassette in 2024 on the artist-run Hiss Collective label in Poznań (home to Bad Phase, Aume, Dynasonic, and Jessica who also produced this record). All solo this time, allowing us to savour the depressive moods and evil tempers which perturb this moody Polish player. Synths and voices join his amplified drum kit, and we’re told it represents his rawer, industrial-noisy side. Unlike Maninkari above, the word “delicate” won’t be the first adjective a listener reaches for when hearing this music; indeed, as we found with Splinter, Szwed’s playing emerges as heavy-handed and inflexible. However, those qualities seem to work in his favour this time, emphasising the misery and claustrophobia of the abstract situations in which he finds himself caged. Both CDs from 26 Feb 2026.