SCHODY DO NIEBA 2008 (WITH DANIEL BLOOM, PAUL LAWLER, MISHA OGORODOV AND STEVE SCHROYDER)

Schody Do Nieba (Stairway To Heaven) was a festival organised by Józef Skrzek in Planetarium Śląskie in Chorzów. The festival's name was inspired by the stairway of the Planetarium. Schody Do Nieba had two editions: the first one in 2008 and second one in 2009. Each edition lasted for two days and consisted of live performances of Skrzek and invited musicians, his friends. There were both solo appearances and collective jam sessions. Extracts from such jam session from the 2008 edition were released on this album. Unfortunatelly, the booklet lacks any information on the instruments each musician play.

On the first edition of the festival, Skrzek promoted his then recently released electronic music album "Ricochet Gathering - Trilogy" he recorded with Paul Lawler and Steve Schroyder. These three musicians also appear on the "Schody Do Nieba 2008" live album. Skrzek also invited polish electronic musician Daniel Bloom and Russian musician Misha Ogorodov.

Although it's intro is an ethnically sounding flute (or other uncredited instrument), the music they played may be desribed as electronic, cosmic landscapes having its roots in the Berlin School of the seventies. The music is mostly instrumental, with some vocoder efects. Such is the longest, opening track, "Edge of Time" with some background sequencers and vocoder-filtered voice. There's an interesting, classically sounding although a little monotonous sequencer work in the second track, "Astral", reminding of old Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze. But the next track, "Dance under Pineapple Tree" has a more contemporary sounding, pulsating beat.

There's a different story with the fourth track, "The Ghost of Dracula". It's quite surprising for it has a gothic atmosphere with keyboards sounding like string instruments. It also has live drums and electric guitar (or guitar-like sounding keyboards).

The next track, "Bridge over Nebula" is an improvisation with no rhythm, dominated by Skrzek's moog solo. The last track, "Voyage to the End" is such an illustrative, slowly floating and mellow track (and again, no rhythm) with some acoustic guitar-sounding instrument (as mentioned, the booklet lacks some most important credits).

My rating: 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4 stars. This recording has a really intriguing atmosphere. Fans of electronic or illustrative music may find this album very interesting. There are some memorable melodies, solos and sequences that will appeal to them.