Cold water in the face is too mild a description for the effect of Grzegorz Kwiatkowski’s poems. What they present is simultaneously so human and so barbaric that nausea may be the truest response—coupled with, for me anyway, a contradictory compulsion to keep reading, a desire not to look away.
Coming to the capital after the worst storm in 30 years, Trupa Trupa appeared to take the challenges of being on tour in the midst of such meteorological mayhem in their stride. “So good to be in London after two years of hell,” said Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, the singer of the band, from Gdansk in Poland, which took elements of progressive rock, punk and the avant-garde and infused them with a sense of humour.
In his life and art, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski has devoted himself to anti-fascism, which, in his native Poland, has become something of a full-time job. As a descendent of a concentration-camp survivor, he’s channeled themes of intergenerational trauma and the banality of evil into celebrated works of poetry that have led to guest-lecturer gigs at universities around the world.
This Polish band’s sixth album is a well-crafted set of ominous rock ranging from driving, tension-filled post-punk to atmospheric psych-rock, with often-dark lyrics for these troubled times.
Imagine the Beatles and Velvet Underground reading Hannah Arendt while in the studio with film director Michael Haneke. That’s Trupa Trupa in a nutshell, a Gdańsk-based band who spent the last decade perfecting their balancing act between lyrical songs and crushing psychedelia.
“The new Trupa Trupa album B Flat A is really good.” – Henry Rollins
I don’t often review poetry on this blog. The last — and, in fact, the only — time I did was Andrew McLuhan’s Written Matter last February. But, once again, words without music, or with music entirely in the head, call.
Trupa Trupa’s Dream of Peace. Polish rock band’s new single “Uniforms” is a clarion call for humanism in a hateful world.
Przedstawić niewyrażalne, czyli milczenie w wierszach Grzegorza Kwiatkowskiego.
Twórczość Grzegorza Kwiatkowskiego zaciekawia z kilku powodów – poprzez tematy, jakie podejmuje w swej poezji, pasję drążenia problemów, zdawałoby się, zbyt odległych dla człowieka urodzonego wiele lat po wojnie, ale także muzykę, którą tworzy1. Każdy z kolejnych zbiorów to bardzo dokładnie przemyślana i skomponowana całość. Gdyby pokusić się już na wstępie o próbę określenia idei tej poezji, należałoby wskazać, że jest nią pamięć.