Sock Free Hideaway

BEATS OF LOVE

9. Sałatka z Bananów by Wojciech Jagielski

LIKE A lot of folk, I fell in love with The Very Polish Cut Outs early edit series featuring Ptaki and Maciek Sienkiewicz, but it was Basso's infectious enthusiasm that turned me onto this gem of a track. Nothing new there then. A well-presented gatefold album whose sleeve-notes tell an intriguing story is already sounding a bit familiar. Yes, it owes a debt to Finders Keepers, but who doesn't? 

Synthesizers were in the rain and shine in 80s Britain and sound-tracked just about everything, but what is shocking to know is how they were rendered invisible through economic inequality behind the iron curtain. The Western financial equivalent would be a modest state-of-the-art studio set up. 

These stark inequalities mean we're listening to folk affluent enough to travel out of Poland to buy synthesizers. Has anyone ever been in an audio shop and not seen a Sting LP lying around? Has anyone ever been in one and not seen a middle-aged guy in a band tee-shirt? Has anyone not seen a £20,000 speaker lying around? No, I thought not. Safe to say we can stereotype Wojciech Jagielski a little then. 

This languid but entrancing track is unsurprisingly the foreground for a background meditative lector/narrative for relieving stress via Isometric training, as Discogs inform me, and on a cassette released by Polish telly. Top digging skills on this one then. 

Translating into Banana Salad, this instrumental genius has never been more needed as we face a barrage of absolute fucking nonsense from all sides in our insane daily lives. With so many online data leaks, so many freshly enlightened folk and so many far saner folk on waiting lists for mental health services, self-help is the best way forward. 

Just press play and a calmness and serenity becomes the order of the day. With just the right amount of strangeness thrown in for good measure. The synthesizer, popularized in the West and a weak component of its telly music, sounds as exotic as it does bonkers. Crazy good, on this breezy composition. Somewhat richer in sound than Western counterparts that speak more about the composer than the instrument, I guess.

In fact, the whole double LP is a highly memorable listening experience. I want to gauge on a lot of 80s Polish telly now to hear more subversive musical interludes.