Just before K and I moved from Poland in 2005, Zakopower, a new band, was growing popular. They performed at a few festivals and they had a hit single.
Unusual music — a combination of traditional highlander music (the original music sounds and looks something like this) with modern beats and instruments.
The first time I heard them, I liked them, but I wasn’t overwhelmed. The song was “Kiebys Ty”
Original, but it just didn’t grab me.
When K’s dad came from Poland, he brought with him some music that K’d requested. Among the CDs was Zakopower’s Musichal.
Listening to it, I realized that Zakopower had committed an frequent-enough error: they’d released the wrong song! Most of the songs, while pleasant, didn’t grab me the first listen.
One did: “Love’s Regret,” with one Boguslawa Kudasik taking lead vocals.
If you’re interested you can get it at CD Universe.
I listened to this song at least half a dozen times yesterday. The opening violin is so mournful that it can make one positively long for Podhale, the mountainous region of southern Poland from which this music comes.
What I love so much about it is how it typifies Goralski singing without being, well, typical. That sense of hanging on with white-knuckled vocal chords (wonderfully mixed, thank you) is at the heart of Goralski music — singing as high and mightily as possible without losing control.
“That’s why all the Goralski songs are so short,” K explains. “No one can sing like that for too long.”
At YouTube
- Video for “Kiebys Ty
- Sopot Concert (Two song set: a cover of Kelis’ “Trick Me,” and “Kiebys Ty”)