Pokusa - Głowy (2026) [Hi-Res]

When AJ Lee stepped back into the ring in September 2025 - after a ten-year break - she introduced herself to a new generation of fans with the words: 'If you haven't heard of me, I am your favourite wrestler’s favourite wrestler.' That is exactly what came to my mind as a lead for this blurb when Pokusa asked me to write it. Because that’s what they are: your favourite indie darlings' favorite indie darlings (even though no one uses that term anymore, let alone identifies as such). They are your favourite cool jazzcats’ favourite jazzcats. And they are probably your favorite young jazz act - if you don’t usually (or ever) listen to jazz.

This, I always thought, is their greatest strength. Half the battle (in my eyes) is recording a sick jazz album - one that a jazz magazine would fawn over. The real win is getting someone wearing a heavy metal T-shirt into it; someone who’s never listened to jazz and has never stepped foot in a place like Pardon, To Tu, but heard Pokusa and decided to change that. I am such a person. I didn't learn about jazz because of them, but they’re definitely the reason I started rating it.

Głowy (Heads) is, in a way, a classic album. If someone played it for me and - relying on my lack of knowledge and gullibility - tried to convince me that it was recorded in the Polish Radio Studios in 1975, at Akwarium Club in Warsaw in 1985, at Club Rura in 1989, somewhere in Tri-City in '94, or at Mózg in Bydgoszcz, I would probably believe it. Its 'classicness' goes hand in hand with its timelessness. I could write about how the album fits into the catalogs of Lado ABC, GOWI, or Biodro Records. I could dig for connections to Yass, Tzadik, or a number of other things.