What a mess this is! No, I don't mean the album, I mean the title. On discogs this is registered as the eponymous album by the band Niemen Enigmatic. It's actually an LP by popular Polish singer Czesław Niemen, whose backing band in the 1970-71 period was called Enigmatic. But that's also the title of his previous album Enigmatic. So Enigmatic (1969) by Czesław Niemen is a different album to Niemen Enigmatic (1971) by Niemen Enigmatic featuring Czesław Niemen. To complicate things further it also circulates under the Polish title Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny, and sometimes as plain Niemen. To simplify them, everybody just calls it The Red Album. Niemen was born Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki in 1939 in a village in Belarus, which was at the time divided between Poland and the USSR (after W.W.II it was completely engulfed by the USSR). In the 60's, he embarked on a career as a pop singer in Poland. His publicity photos of the time show him wearing multicolored hippy outfits and long hair, which must have turned a lot of heads in Communist Poland. He used to play pop and soul music, but around 1969 he embarked on a more progressive direction with longer pieces incorporating jazz and classical elements. The 20+ minute opener "Czlowiek Jam Niewdzieczny" takes up all of size 1. It starts as an organ-based ballad ("Whiter Shade Of Pale" comes to mind) and turns into a long jam with many solos - bass and drums too, though the organ and guitar are most prominent. There are also some pretty cool female backing vocals here and there, as well as nods to early Deep Purple (Mk.I), Traffic, and the Jullie Driscoll/ Brian Auger collaborations.
"Aerumnarum Plenus" and "Italiam, Italiam" are nice jazz-soul ballads, "Enigmatyczne Impresje" a rocking instrumental à la Small Faces, "Wruc Jeszcze Dzis" and "Zechcesz Mnie Zechcesz" are upbeat soul rockers, the latter with nice piano instead of the usual Hammond. "Chwila Ciszy" features some sizzling electric guitar and funky bass, "Nie Jestes Moja" his most emotive vocal, and "Sprzedaj Mnie Wiatrowi" some folk-prog flute. Side 4 of the (double) LP closes with "Muzyko Moja". The combination of Hammond organ, hard rock guitars and soul vocals is reminiscent of contemporary Atomic Rooster (with P.J. Proby on vocals). Overall I'm once again impressed with how much with the times (if not ahead of them) a rock band from East Europe could be. Maybe the "Iron Curtain" wasn't that impenetrable after all? Or -maybe, just maybe- it was shielding us Westerners from learning that on the other side there was youth culture, rock'n'roll and modern art. Meanwhile, the Western stereotype of East European youth at the time was uniformed soldiers and androgynous women working out beneath portraits of Lenin, training to beat our athletes at the Olympics. I wonder which side was consuming more propaganda. But in any case, this LP is just as as progressive as anything coming from the UK at the time - and more so than most U.S. groups. It's notable for its fresh mix of jazz, soul and hard rock, excellent musicianship, and some experimental touches that nevertheless take care not to alienate the audience. I must admit that, despite him having a strong and soulful voice, I can't warm up to Niemen's vocals. I think it has to do with the Polish language - not because I am unfamiliar with it, but because I don't think it fits with this kind of music. In any case, this is an excellent album well worth discovering. I'm now eager to delve deeper into Polish rock - I already have a compilation of Niemen's early pop soul stuff, but I'd like to find more albums in this style. SBB and Skaldowie are two more Polish prog groups worth hearing, as well as new wavers Republika and the Anglo-Polish Porter Band - all to be presented in this blog sometime.
**** for Człowiek Jam Niewdzięczny, Aerumnarum Plenus, Italiam Italiam, Enigmatyczne Impresje, Wróć Jeszcze Dziś, Sprzedaj Mnie Wiatrowi, Zechcesz Mnie Zechcesz, Chwila Ciszy
*** for Nie Jesteś Moja, Mój Pejzaż, Muzyko Moja
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