Enchanted Hunters – Peoria (Antena Krzyku, 2012)
Published June, 2012
by Easterndaze
When travelling through Poland in the autumn of 2010, we came across the musicians Michal Hoppe known under his post-rock moniker No One Wished to Settle Hereafter and Filip Szalaszek known as Fight!Suzan (whose track Youth Jugend was included on our first compilation) in the polish Tricity. Thanks to them we also discovered Enchanted Hunters and listened to a couple of tracks released on their Myspace. Two years later, Enchanted Hunters have finaly released their debut record Peoria.
Peoria is a surprisingly clean and acoustic record at a time when lofi production techniques have become so widely used. Twelve songs on the LP feature singing, guitar and violin played by Gosia Penkalla, with Magda Gajdzica as the second vocalist playing flute and xylophone and Patryk Zieliniewicz on percussions and guitar. Gosia’s and Magda’s classical music background has also left its marks on the composition of the tracks. Fragmentary layers of instrumentation or voice are overlayed or answer each other to create simple sounding but elaborate harmonies.
Enchanted Hunters – Holy Virgin (Peoria LP) by easterndaze
Peoria, released on the polish label Antena Krzyku, is hard to corner. Musically it is indebted to the wave of new songwriting inspired by folk music, reminding us of musicians such as Joanna Newsom or Sufjan Stevens. Mastered by the young composer Nils Frahm, it oscillates between freak-folk and contemporary classical music, and up to some extent uses elements of pop. However, for the ordinary listener, the record might be a bit too sophisticated and subtle. Peoria is a remarkable debut of a band that might still need to explore their unique sound with more sovereignty and boldness in future.