Resina - Speechless (2021) [Hi-Res]

Warsaw-based cellist / composer Resina (Karolina Rec) returns with a first standalone album in three years, taking a big step forward on a bold and brilliantly expansive record that explores ideas about language, the voice and the unpredictability of nature. Recorded by Resina and Michał Kupicz, with striking additional mixing and production work by Daniel Rejmer (Ben Frost, Björk, Foals, Girls Names), ‘Speechless’ is fluid and muscular, with wide dynamics and a dark and powerful dramatic weight. Across nine tracks, Resina’s cello, voice and electronics are set alongside drummer Mateusz Rychlicki, the 23-piece 441 Hz choir, with Magdalena Gajdzica playing flute (track 1) and Michał Fojcik adding field recording & sound design (track 4).

Removed from their regular, more refined classical contexts, cello and choir are subjected to electronic processing, expanded and deployed in a swirling, visceral sound-world, sometimes pushed into distortion and anchored alongside Rychlicki’s driving drumming. An amalgama[1]tion of noise, rock, ambient, choral and classical elements, Speechless shifts from gossamer beauty to glowering threat; from pulsing minimalism to full-bore propulsive blow-outs. As well as moments of great beauty, it is shot through with shrieks and howls, cavernous bass drops, sirens and sudden pitch shifts. A bold and adventurous work that synthesises the very best of her previous two albums and packs a powerful punch.