Zawsze Coś LP

„BEN BEKELE does not exist. At least not the one I’m thinking of.

It’s a mix of memories and fantasies from the mid-80s when it was my father who visited Ethiopia, returning with two small drums, a couple of pictures and tons of tales.
One of them was a story of a boy named Bekele, who taught him a traditional Ethiopian song.

Father passed this song on to us, as best as he could – now I’m having doubts as to what the message is actually about – but back then I was fascinated. Many years later, when I was preparing a song for a compilation „Portrety” at U Know Me Records, I realized that the bass line that I created resembled a fragment of that exact song. Apparently the melody buried itself somewhere deep in my subconscious and unexpectedly revealed itself at that moment. Therefore I decided to honor the memory of my deceased of 30 years dad (whose friends called him Ben) naming the composition: „The Life and Death of Ben Bekele”. The song turned out to be very happy to me – its success definitely exceeded expectations, while in my head an idea to go further after Ben Bekele began to form.

This time I didn’t want to work alone. I invited Kamil Piotrowicz and Igor Wiśniewski to cooperate with me. Incredibly creative, sensitive artists and wonderful companions on stage as well as off it. The music on this album is similar to a small extent to the „founding” piece.
It has however a couple of common features, with focus on the rhythm as the form-forming factor at the forefront. It’s also organic, emotional, at times trance-like and illustrative.

I sincerely hope that when listening to this record, for these tens of minutes you’ll escape from the surrounding us not-so-pleasant everyday life.”
Hubert Zemler

„If I had to pick someone for an “AI versus the rest of the world” showdown, my money would be on Hubert Zemler. Whether commanding a full drum kit or just a snare, electronics, free-jazz structures, mazurkas, footwork, a Kraftwerkian pulse, or the dreamlike landscapes of REM sleep, he handles it all with effortless authority.
Trying to pin him down by genre is futile. It’s easier to say: the man is brilliant. Drums may be his starting point, but his decades-spanning discography—as both leader and co-leader—proves he could supply an entire ensemble with albums and still have more to spare.

Ben Bekele, his latest project, likely wouldn’t exist without a track from 2019’s compilation Portrety. Though technically a percussion piece, it was practically crafted by a one-man orchestra—and even found its way into an iPhone commercial. Zemler is, in a sense, like a smartphone: versatile, multifunctional, indispensable.

Yet he is not alone. Alongside him are two boundary-defying collaborators. Kamil Piotrowicz, like Zemler, seems uninterested in musical borders. With roots in jazz, he ventures into electronics, sonorism, punk rock, and even noise, constantly bending conventions, teasing them, reshaping them. Igor Wiśniewski, on the other hand, channels a raw guitar ethos in Gym Wisdom, dabbled in jazz with Ninja Episkopat, and explores warmer tones with Soyuz.

Zemler molds the world with drums, Piotrowicz with keys, and Wiśniewski with guitars. The plural is deliberate. Ben Bekele doesn’t have a single face—it has many. This trio sculpts the project like a living entity, revealing multiple facets, each distinct yet interconnected.

The album teeters between nervous pulsations and the search for calm, between playfulness and tension. The music breathes like a multi-headed organism—sometimes rhythmic, sometimes misty, sometimes mechanical, sometimes dissolved into abstraction. One band, one session, countless worlds.

On one hand, there is the pursuit of impressionistic soundscapes. It emerges most vividly where time loses its edges—in tracks like “Linoleum (Shining),” where synthesizers dissolve like light in a smoky room, and Wiśniewski’s guitar flickers like a spectral apparition rather than a tangible instrument. This is the music’s most ephemeral, dreamlike, misted face.

Then another constellation appears—jittery, restless, like a flickering fluorescent light in a dilapidated hotel. “R-4” pulses with this nervous energy: the guitar jagged and raw in a Braxton-like, post-Battles style; Piotrowicz’s keys panicking in a torrent of runaway impulses; Zemler driving the whole structure into a wall of pulsating polyrhythms. It is pure, unsettled consciousness.

Ben Bekele carries the rhythm of a wanderer, rooted in ancestral music, reminiscent of a traveling troupe on the march. In “Niosą,” each step is measured by precise percussion; melodies appear like mirages, fleeting visions. Mechanics meet melancholy. “Phillip Jeffries” unfolds like a clockwork mechanism in dim light, starting sparsely, then evolving into droning minimalism, reminiscent of a nocturnal walk through a place that doesn’t exist on any map. Precision dissolves into fog, rhythm swallowed by darkness. In “Zawsze coś,” synthesizers twist into acidic realms, the guitar loops like an endless equation, and the keys shriek with tension. “La Clave en medio de la nada” opens slowly, gently, like floating on a drone just finding its course. Kamil’s Rhodes adds warmth, Igor’s guitar paints distant, cosmic lights, and Zemler introduces the pulse with remarkable patience.

This album is a mosaic, a labyrinth, an organism in constant transformation. Ethnic textures merge with electronics, guitar experiments intersect with acoustic discipline, ambient fog meets polyrhythmic drive, minimalism collides with expression. Trance-like fascinations confront dehumanized electronics; contemplation wrestles with tension. It is a story of unsettled times and the pursuit of peace—a touch of psychedelia, compartmentalized ADHD, bursts of excitement, climaxes, spirals, and scale shifts. This is Ben Bekele.„

Jakub Knera