The album unasked, unanswered by the Polish quartet LNSD, led by saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Szymon Łukowski, brings a variable mix of sound-unmistakable compositions, filled with energy, dynamics, freshness and colour.

This is the debut album by the Polish Jazz ensemble LNSD Quartet, which comprises of saxophonist Szymon Lukowski, guitarist Gabriel Niedziela, keyboardist Jan Smoczynski and drummer Pawel Dobrowolski. The album presents seven original compositions, five by Lukowski and one each by Smoczynski and Niedziela. The album was recorded at the Studio Tokarnia and engineered by Smoczynski.

The music is quite different from the three albums recorded earlier by Lukowski as a leader, which were all pretty mainstream Jazz oriented, whereas this album offers a different approach, still melody based and musically straightforward, but with a highly unique sound created by the synthesized keyboards, at times almost industrial, Funky / Fusiony guitar sound and busy drumming, which together create a heavy, somewhat muddy / murky / distorted sound, and which takes a while to get adopted to and prompts the listener to check his ears / sound system to make sure that what he hears is what was intended to be heard.

I admit that it took some effort to accept the music for what it is and by the second listening it started to make perfect sense. There is plenty if great music under the murky exterior and the darkish atmosphere of the album has its fortes. Lukowski and Niedziela play some excellent soli here, and Smoczynski is busy enough with creating the ambient background, while Dobrowolski sets the paste with his usual precision and artistry.

Overall, this is a very unusual sounding album, which offers some excellent compositions and great performances, but requires open-mindedness as far as the sound and ambience are concerned. Patience is, as usual, well rewarded! Jazz lovers, who are into novel sound experiments, should have a field day with this album.

Adam Baruch

  1. This Fall's Last Sunny Day

  2. Untitled

  3. Goodbye, Friend

  4. Unasked, Unanswered

  5. February 10th

  6. Przecież F dur to subdominata

  7. Rupert

Szymon Łukowski - saksofony i klarnet basowy
Gabriel Niedziela - gitara
Jan Smoczyński - klawisze
Paweł Dobrowolski - perkusja

wydawca: HEVHETIA 2021

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