Mik Musik was a label that Digital Hardcore Distribution stumbled upon on the advice of some trusted friends, and what a gem the label is! Run by The Complainer (Wojt3k Kucharczyk), Mik has constantly pushed the boundries of what peole can do sonically. It's not an IDM label, its not a gabba label, its not break-core, its not jazz, its not a comedy label - what is it? It is just, simply put, quality music. Long loved by UK's The Wire magazine, Mik Musik has also made quite the splash into Europe too, feel free to check out their reviews section on the Mik Musik website which can be found under the releases tab. Hope you will like Mik Musik as much as we do here!!
17 track CD Wire Magazine: "Perhaps it's simply that irony is the last refuge of the programmer who can't be bothered to get to grips with modern software. Whatever, we're one step away from an electroclash version of "The Birdie Song", mark my words. Enter The Complainer, a grumpy old electro-grouch who's here to show the sneery kitschophiliacs with their 100 quid mullets how retro should be done. Firstly, this Complainer (Wojt3k Kucharczyk, founder of Polish label Mik.Musik, which is also home to the great 8Rolek) is in his mid-thirties, and so can justifiably claim to be in possesion of the necessary insight into the 80s zeitgeist. Secondly, his Polish upbringing allows him a certain detachment, enabling him to filter the essence of the times through his individual sensibilities instead of simply aping the moves of another age. Thirdly, he loves the music enough to put it to work in new ways rather than patronising it by simple quotation or imitation." Price: £10.00
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11 Track CD The Wire: "Bartek Kujawski produces pile-ups of broken beats that teeter on brink of unintelligibility. Umpomat pushes the minimal Techno envelope to the outer reaches of abstract noise, yet retains a sense of childlike discovery and simple fun reflected in titles like "Loopop" and "Volksmusik", showing Kujawski to be as individual a voice in electronica as has been heard for some time. The album spotlights a sort of brutalist pointlism, tracks built from percussive flecks of distortion fed into locked loops that rub against each other. What results is music whose central pulse is constantly compromised by conflicting, Ligeti-like rhythmic cycles. The most startling feature of the album is its unremittingly dry, bleak texture. Kujawski's palette is almost exclusively limited to distorted, abrasive sound, as if all the source material were created by rubbing contact mics over facial stubble. Where a harmonic element is introduced, it is either subjected to hideous digital abuse - as on "Hapy En.", in which what sounds like a barrel organ is mashed up royally - or obscured just as it begins to coalesce, as on "Loopop", whose toytown melody is viewed through a near opaque curtain of electronic coughs and splutters. Yet somehow Umpomat is itchy and funky despite its uncompromisingly grey soundworld. It shares the same impish spirit as certain early Aphex tracks like "D-Scape" where the extremity of the processing destabilises the music's rhytmic chassis but can't halt its weird momentum. Genuinely bizarre, but rather loveable."
Price: £10.00
20 Track CD The Wire: "Frankly insane instrumental HipHop, all the way from Poland. CO manages to pull off the trick of combining good-humoured, buyant beats with genuinly involving and audaqcious textures, and he does so without deviating from his own parrallel universe rulebook. It's the work of one Maciek Kujawski, and while, sonically speaking, his debut album is a little rough round the edges, it also displays enough insouciant inventiveness to make that a trifling concern. Opener "Corpo Humano" sets the tone - head-nodding beats adorned with the kind of giddy, burgeoning fairground noise in which Non's Boyd Rice used to specialise, and !Comoc! continues along these lines for the next hour. Along the way jittery, backmasked sine tones, scrawny electro keyboard stabs, lurching surfadelia, rickety Old School arcade noise and much more besides are all folded into the mix - Kujawski even includes a thoughtful three minutes of silence two thirds of the way through, which allows the disorientated listener to regain his composture. It's strangly welcome, too." Price: £10.00
"Have All! But Where" by Polish songstress Asi Mina strikes the delicate balance between Joanna Newsom's fragile rhythms and fractured melodies and Martha Wainright's prowess and foresight with graceful elegance. Just one look at the packaging and your mind is blown away - such care, attention and detail. You'll have to see it to understand, but trust us, you will not be disappointed. Price: £10.00