Night Trains

Artists

Album Info

Release Date: 2011-06

Label: Gusstaff Records

Picture CDr with wraparound colour insert in plastic wallet.


Night Trains” is the debut album from the young, Krakow-based band Vladimirska, which appeared on Poland’s music scene in early 2010.


From Kudos Distribution website -

"With their unusual combination of instruments (accordion, trumpet, guitar and baritone saxophone) and original sound, Vladimirska’s music isn’t easy to classify. Their experimental attitude in composing songs and relaxed, natural attitude towards performing keep them firmly rooted in the realm of indie folk-pop. But they simultaneously have another foot in a darker, more exotic and carnivalesque musical realm reaching back to oldtime European fanfares, carnivals and travelling circuses. The band themselves refer to their music as “retrocircus-folk.”

Vladimirska’s debut album presents a selection of the songs they’ve composed since they started playing together in 2009. Some of the tunes are dreamy and melancholy (“Muzyka do filmu”, “Night Trains”) while others are faster with a wild, carnivalesque spirit (“Spectacolo”, “Hala Targowa Circus Theme”, “House on Fire”). Natural, unpretentious vocals from Vladimirska’s accordionist, Scotia Gilroy, appear in several songs. The album was recorded in February 2011 in the old Miraculum factory in Krakow.

The retro-carnival sound of Vladimirska began when Scotia Gilroy, a Canadian accordion-player living in Krakow, started accompanying a pantomime clown show with “circus music” that she composed herself. After the actor she was performing with returned to Berlin, she was struck by the idea of creating a band in Krakow to compose and perform this type of music. Her dream was finally realised when she met Igor Herzyk at an open mic, a guitarist involved in a few other Krakow bands. They were joined by skilled trumpet-player Ernest Heksel and French baritone saxophone-player, Guillaume Martin (later replaced by Romek Głowacki). They met frequently to explore the melodies that Scotia had composed, but they soon found that a unique sound was emerging in what they were doing, and they began to compose swiftly together.