Recenzje

Atman - Natural mystics

"As a musician I'm. inspired by the rituals and traditions that remind us of our relationship to the whole web of life", declares Atman's Marek Styczynski, "our relationship to nature, that is full of passion and love, joy and pain, fun and sorrow - it's life and creativity in its core meaning. That's why we often stand for wildlife protection and against investments that are going to destroy this unimaginable wealth. Here is my family and my soul and I'm going to protect them as long as is necessary."
Atman (a Buddhist term for 'self', the divine ground of human consciousness) are a ragbag Polish collective of environmentalists, foresters and mystics based in the Carpathian mountain range at the dark heart of Europe. "We are the mountaineers from the Carpathians", asserts Styczynski, the group's nominal spokesman. "It's a place where you can still meet the wolf, the eagle, valleys full of mystery. Through its myths of wise moen, witches, medicine men and werewolves we have travelled and grown up."
Although they have been labelled somewhat lazily as psychedelic folkies, Atman's ecstatic communal music is something else. They reference such diverse strands as Indian music (they started out in the late 70s accompanying a classical Indian dancer), expansive free jazz, the original Amon Duul commune, Ambient minimalism and Eastern European balladry. Since 1990 they have been documenting their progress on their own FLY cassette imprint. However, it wasn't until the US label Drunken Fish reissued their Personal Forest LP (it originally came out on Lollipop Shop in Germany) that Western troglodytes became aware of their music. To many observers the album seemed to appear from out of nowhere, the nearest comparison being some of the leftfield folk released by Tokyo's PSF label, such as Masaki Batoh's Ghost.
Rather than music, however, Atman draw influence and inspiration from the rythms, harmonies and textures of nature. "As an artist I believe that the wild is the source of infinite diversity and richness of life forms", syas Styczynski. "For me it's an endless inspiration. We're very involved in the Deep Ecology movement which is based upon the belief that all living beings have intrinsic worth regardless of their instrumental value to humans."
Styczynski is wary of subordinating Atman music to any particular political cause, however. "It's impossible to put any ideas into music, it's an abstraction", he says. "Of course we use the covers and titles to express our attitude; for instance, proceeds from our Save the Wolf EP went towards a campaign run by the Workshop For All Beings, which we provided information about on the cover. These days it seems there is so much impudent advertising around that I really wish that what I do could be free of this insolence - even if there are very important and meaningful messages."
Atman mainly favour a traditional acoustic instrumentation, drawing heavily on the large collection of obscure ethnic instruments collected by Stycyznski during his worldwide travels. He believes that each one is unique and boasts its own soul, which player must learn to activate. "When you reach for so-called 'ethnic instrument' you involve yourself in a comprehensive message", he says. "One part of the message is telling us, 'I'm. a child and a priest of a certain human tribe and its surroundings'. This part of message is passed on by so-called 'fol music'. But I see the remaining part of this message, which is telling me, 'I'm. also a part of a common tradition, of the universal message of planet Earth. I possess a certain form, sound and playing technique because only that which is very intimate has a chance to become simultaneously a part of the universal."
Improvisation is the key to unlocking and freeing these vibrations, for accessing the OM, the mother of all sounds. "Perversely I would say that only when your are acting as a channel through which sounds flow can you create somthing that's truly new and fresh," Styczynski ventures. "But to open such channels much work has to be done. For me it always seemed I had to really dip into life, to experience intensively and bravely, to open my mind and heart. Improvisation is the only thing that matters to me in music. I'm. not interested in any 'schools of improvisation' or prescriptions on how to improvise, that seems to me to be a paradox. A couple of times I've seen improvising musicians in India, in what we call trance or possession states. This kind of improvisation interests me the most, where you have to engage all of your intuition and concentration. This state of mind/body is very close to meditation. In fact it is meditation."
Just when the world has finally caught up with them, Styczynski feels that after 20 years Atman have run their course; he is about to launch a new project called The Magic Carpathians, a collective basedaround himself and the otherwordly vocals of Anna nacher, who appeared on Atman's swansong album, Tradition.
"I felt the frame we worked within in Atman wassuddenly too static, too constrictive," he explains. "The crucial point was improvisation, I needed more space for improvised music. I realised that my musical language and needs are different from those of my companions. In The Magic Carpathians I have freedom of playing whatever I feel is right. Some of our concerts were played as in a dream."
The debut Mgic Carpathians CD., Ethnocore, takes a huge leap into deep electronic space. Driven by crushingly powerful electric guitar and bass, the music staggers through peaks of riffs and howling chants to slow rippling pools of stasis. According to Styczynski, his new colleague Maciej Maciejewski "plays his guitar as if came from the beautiful hell of dirty and brave sounds.
"Now I play what I like the most - labirynths and corridors - using a variety of ethnic instruments through which their own souls speak. If I'm. lucky I act just as the channles for their message," he concludes. "now is the time to look for our roots and our original, real culture, which for sure is not only Hollywood, Mickey Mouse and hamburgers."

The Wire, September 99
David Keenan