Review of DA, PULKA 30/11/2005

DA

PULKA

Sunday Service / Hausmusik

Listening to this album brings back childhood memories. I remember myself, as a 5 or 6-year old kiddie, playing alone with my toy cars, in my small room, just before dinner, with the sounds of this engaging album acting as background music, leaping out from the Polish –in those days- record-player. Its melodies unfolding in a bittersweet fashion would fill the space with nostalgia and feelings of intense joy and sorrow.

No words are heard, save the scuffing of the small toys, combined with the mellow and beautiful moments of the album. It’s only later that I’ll find out that those albums without lyrics are called instrumental, while on the back cover, I discern eleven track titles, short ones, such as “bummer", "flips", "vatnet", "pfan", "whip". They must be in a language I don’t speak. It’s again later that I’ll find out that it’s German, same as the gentleman by the name of Frank Szardening who wrote these eleven pieces, living permanently in Berlin. This gentleman must be home to a load of memories and bittersweet times, which he capably allows to permeate this album with the unsophisticated and monosyllabic title "Da". As if it was chosen on purpose, so that the rest of the kids that now start uttering their first words, are able to pronounce it.

Pulka’s music makes you feel warm inside, achieving this in a really beautiful manner, employing strings, melodica, old-school piano, clockwork, and all kinds of other delicate electronic sounds. They are sounds that you hear unfolding playfully and rhythmically, in only just 37 minutes, taking you from the hand affectionately.

The sunbeams take their turn to flood the room, making their entry from the small window, a voice from the background: "Aris, dinner’s ready"... "Comin’ mum..."

P.S. Pulka’s debut is released at the beginning of January by Sunday Service.

Aris Bouras

Trnsltd by Andreas Alexandridis

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