On September 29 Instant Classic will release \"LAS\" – eighth studio album from long-running Polish alternative heroes Kristen. This is where their superb musicianship blends into something that can only be described as a modern take on Neu! and Cluster legacy with a hint of premier league songwriting.
\"LAS\" consists of five tracks recorded by Łukasz Rychlicki (guitar), Michał Biela (bass, voice), Mateusz Rychlicki (drums) and Maciej Bączyk (ARP, Synthi AKS). This personnel contributed to \"The Secret Map\" - Kristen's 2014 album – but this time their effort may only be described as a perfect symbiosis. \"Two years ago Maciek Bączyk was more like a guest. He just paid us a visit in the studio with his synths. Now he is a full-time member of the band\", explains Łukasz Rychlicki. \"It changed almost everything, starting from our sound that became more complete – even a single sound may impact the whole composition. We, as musicians, are now more cautious in our playing\", he adds.
Four out of five tracks from \"LAS\" are instrumentals. \"This may be due to the fact that we often rehearsed without the microphone and thanks to this we noticed that the songs contribute to a bigger whole and don't need vocals. The title track is the only one that we performed live before the album came out and since the beginning we wanted it to have vocal parts. Lyrics were written in Polish really fast and that was it. I personally hope that in the future we're gonna have more Polish lyrics as an addition to freer form\".
The intriguing cover photo is a work of Dawid Gąsiorek and contrary to what you might think, there's no secret story behind it. \"It just fits well with our music. Of course, there's some secret hidden and some allusions that leave you wondering how to approach it. An open situation, as I call it, same as our music\", adds Rychlicki.
