PLAYS LEBOWSKI

Lebowski Plays Lebowski is a live album of nine tracks where, rather unusually, only three tracks have previously been released. Two of the tracks, Icelandic and Cinematic come from their wonderful debut Cinematic released in 2010. Goodbye My Joy was released as a single in 2013. I have been searching the Web trying to find out what the band have been doing over the last seven years prior to this latest release but have little to report.

Although their styles differ, Lebowski remind me of The Cinematic Orchestra who are similarly capable of crafting exquisite melodies and whose frequency of releases has also been somewhat sporadic. The music of Lebowski is instrumental with occasional spoken Polish commentary. The music style is beautifully melancholic mellow jazz rock. There is subtle use of piano and keyboards with some beautiful trumpet and guitar solos. All nine live tracks are of high quality and I listened to the whole album on repeat for some time.

If all nine tracks were new releases then I would rate this five stars but given that a third of the album is live performances of previously released (but nevertheless beautiful) music I shall rate it a strong four stars. This is an album that deserves greater recognition because it will bring so much joy to so many.

I was looking through the band's website trying to find out more information about the band, and then realised that they were showing an advertisement for a gig which took place four years ago, when they were performed with both Collage and SBB! They describe it as "Three bands, three generations and a shared passion for music" and it must have been an incredible night ? now if only someone had a recording, as SBB and Collage are definitely two of my very favourite Polish bands. Mind you, somehow I think I might be adding Lebowski to that list. As is implied by the album title, this is a live album, but strangely this is seven years on from their only other album to date, plus there have been a couple of singles. Much of the material on this 2017 album hasn't been released prior to this, but their site shows that they gig quite a lot, so it seems somewhat strange that there isn't more material to show for a band that have been together since 2002.

Instrumental, their debut album was music for an imaginary film, and this album is still very much in the soundtrack fashion, with sweeping keyboards and piano making way for dramatic guitar while the rhythm section keep it all together. I cannot believe I haven't come across Lebowski prior to this, as there is a togetherness and lightness in their music which is just wonderful. Poland has a great history of producing amazing bands, although many people don't seem to look past Riverside to see what else is in the scene for some reason, and Lebowski are certainly worthy of being recognised as producing some truly wonderful melodic progressive rock music. With both keyboard player Marcin Luczaj and guitarist Marcin Grzegorczyk knowing exactly how to either support each other or provide dynamic leads, while drummer Krzysztof Pakula is rarely content to provide simple fills and Marek Zak also showing that a bass should be far more than just keeping it all pinned, this is a wonderful introduction to Lebowski, and I only hope that we hear more soon. All progheads should be looking for this.