For over a decade, the Polish band Trupa Trupa has been unleashing idiosyncratic blasts of psychedelic rock with a sharp post-punk edge, using music as a form of catharsis as well as activism. The group — Grzegorz Kwiatkowski and Wojtek Juchniewicz on vocals and guitar, plus Tomek Pawluczuk on drums — is now gearing up for the release of their new EP, “Mourners,” along with a performance at New York’s Heaven can wait on March 1.
“These are very intense concerts. They are crazy. They are odd,” Kwiatkowski says. The 40-year-old musician and poet is prone to Ian Curtis-like paroxysms onstage, allowing the songs to flow through his body like a spirit. New York is the final destination on the band’s U.S. tour, following stops in Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia, among other cities. They’ve previewed “Mourners” — which comes after 2022’s “B Flat A” LP — with the lead single, “Sister Ray,” an earworm packed with scintillating, hooky guitars, celestial synths and ambiguous lyrics repeated ritualistically. As the record goes on, the tension between the trio’s different approaches results in mesmeric chaos: “I’m creating beauty in our studio, and Wojtek and Tomek are taking a hammer and just banging it,” Kwiatkowski says. “Trupa Trupa is all about strange combinations and mixes.”
Danielle Chelosky, New York Times, T-Magazine
