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  Dominik Dolega 
  Everything Is True
  (Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!)) 


  
   review by Jeph Jerman
  2025-02-25
Dominik Dolega: Everything Is True (Listen! Foundation (Fundacja Sluchaj!))

Dominik Dolega is a classically trained percussionist from Poland, who offers here a series of short "memories" with a small group of international players utilizing voice, reeds, turntables and guitars. Mostly duets, these pieces are often somber, subdued and contemplative, and very well recorded.

The first piece (they're all titled "Memory"), is slow moving mallet instruments in a careful melody, while the second adds bass clarinet for a very brief dance. "Memory III" is eerie bowed metals and distinctly Frippian guitar backing up a dramatic recitation by two voices, sometimes overlayed. I'm not sure what's being said, but it's very evocative. Later things get complicated a bit, to nice effect, with crackly piano recordings sprinkled around rolling vibraphone (or maybe lithophone?) and whistling, a clash of competing associations which creates a sonic tension as things rub against each other.

"Memory V" feels like a doomed ship, and "Memory VI" brews up clouds of woody harmonics with its overlayed mallet-driven turns. I'm not sure what a bassdesmophone is, but I'm thinking maybe it's making that low end thrumming sound underpinning the alto sax in "Memory VII". Some fairly martial sounding snare rolls and haunting, far away sing-song, complete this one. Elsewhere we're treated to swinging Egyptian or Moroccan sounding drum and string, heavy echoing knock and drone, and a slowly spinning children's song. Bowing and booming with water dripping amid much reverb send us off via a cinematic title sequence.







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