Credits: Martin Delaney
Polish experimental/noise scene prodigy Ewa Justka drops a very physical live recording bursting with punkish energy and gabber/hardcore intensity. [social_warfare]
Ewa Justka is a Polish experimental/industrial/noise music artist based in London, UK. She is involved in a wide array of creative activities, including building musical instruments, leading DIY workshops, creating installations and performing her unique and ever-evolving music. Ewa’s main focus is the exploration of ontological environments and the materiality of objects. Her works are very diverse, but they tend to be situated on the intersection between science/engineering and music - as she has mentioned in an interview for Straylandings, she is fascinated by the analog signal, which is universal and “can be applied to everything and can be sent through everything”. Each of Ewa’s works investigates different objects or phenomena and therefore employs varying approaches. For example, she has experimented with optoelectronics, where light is generated together with sound, and she is currently building neon synthesizers. Ewa operates in an area where a liberal and non-traditional approach towards engineering and technology paves the way for new creative spaces and methods. An extension of this are her activities as an educator (including her hardware hacking module at the London University of Arts), which are significant due to how they expand the limits of using technology for music and sound art. Ewa’s technology-centric approach to music makes her collaboration with Roc Jiménez de Cisneros of EVOL seem natural. The duo have recently been making music and are planning to build synthesizers both for their live sets and the market. Be sure to check out Ewa’s tapes on Conditional and Fractal Meat Cuts, as well as the numerous sound experiments on her personal Bandcamp.The 238th entry in Secret Thirteen Mix series is not a mix at all, but rather an exclusive live recording by Ewa Justka, continuing the tendencies of her recent live performances where analog pulsations shift into wild rhythmic attacks. This is a particularly intense record of fast acidey sequences that occasionally reach an almost gabber/hardcore intensity. It kicks off quite heavy from the very first seconds and as it continues on we hear rhythmic patterns transform, get dismantled, deconstructed, jumping from electrified 4/4 outbursts to chaos and mayhem. The recording elicits a very physical response and not merely due to the fact that sitting still through it may prove difficult. The punkish analog nature of the sound and its lively organic texture (which is a significant feature of Ewa’s work) makes this a perfect fit for some basement party or a more experimental-minded warehouse rave where unexpected twists and turns are a preferable way of moving crowds. “QXO2/2 - La Montagne du 20.05.2010” by Jean-Francois Dubreuil could be a nice visual companion to these sounds - this painting maintains a similar pattern evolution and structurized intensity to Ewa’s set.
Ewa on mix:
“What happens if you pour acid all over/inside the house, but the house is a cave? You get lost. You get lost and you get confused, since the liquid acid started reconfiguring itself into strange form, a form sort of similar to stalagmites, by piling up and tending to climax, but never really reaching it.
One could say that the acid cave is a semi controlled hysteria with this underlying need to culminate while at same time being under the resistance of it’s own products.
Take is as you like.”
