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Older reviewsKJ Sawka has often been described as a human drum machine and with the current trends in our electronic evolution this artist may not be a surprise, but he is still quite an inspiration. I recently saw him “live” in Seattle for the third time. I couldn’t help but notice the amount of praise he receives at every show. Even a bouncer working at the Last Supper Club explained his enthusiasm and thanked Sawka for performing on a Thursday, for free at the downtown Seattle venue. The crowd presses around his setup during performances in awe and astonishment. Vibing and absorbing every crack’n crunch of his tick, tucked beats. His skill to recreate extravagant drum&bass and jungled,breaks is profoundly designed by the careful ear of what I call a “neo age drummer”. I could go on about how he has been recognized by a number of industries well known artists as others have, but at this point it could sound redundant and is becoming exceedingly irrelevant. Although, he is still working with other musicians on a number of music projects his solo performance is unique and unrivalled. Anyone present in the crowd being a musician or not, is excited to see him play. Not only are the mixtures he creates extremely complex, but they are also accompanied by his conjunct mess of mashed up, acoustic and electronic instruments displayed right before you. Protruding from a wiry backdrop of blinking lights, his collection of hardware and computer are stacked upon racks, but you don’t really ever see him stop playing. He just uses one hand or the other to tap in and out of tracks and a few other things I’m not sure if I can explain. He bounces in and out of broken, breaks, buildups with energy that flows like a chi powered, kung fu technology. Two hi hats and a microphone, and anything else he can use to fuel his zone is carefully spread within arms length for easy access. This is a show that if I had paid, would have been well worth the money. Oh, and what about the lights? Another “neo” evolution in drum culture is taking a step forward and I had the advantage of observing. They are called “Drumlights”. (drumlights.com) “Yeah, Imagine that” KJ said. We laughed because nether of us had ever thought about googling that before hearing about it. I asked him about them. Just as Sawka is from Seattle they too, are conveniently based in Seattle. A perfect match and the company has gone so far as to represent KJ on the homepage of the drumlight website. At first glance I thought, “well, I have to see them first” and once I did I thought, “wow”! What a show! I have to feel a sense of compassion for the DJ that Plays before Sawka. As soon as you see him step behind his small mountain of electronic, acoustic devices and instruments the lights get lower. All of a sudden you’re taken back, watching a reverberation of his every hit throughout his spaced age drum kit. A band of lights are wrapped around every acoustic piece of equipment from his 16 inch bass drum to the multitude of snares he snaps to and forth, from. A tower of drumlights on either side of his setup, reflect a BPM inspired, visual tone. Throughout the show fills and expressions illuminating the sounds of drum&bass breakdowns. All of it controlled by the hands and feet of one man. But, are the drumlights just show or what a past professor would describe to me as “heroin entertainment”? Perhaps, drumlights could provide a step of evolution for the subconscious ties drummers develop in practice. Bear with me here, I know that seems kind of strange sounding, but we know that drums make different sounds depending on size and eventually a seasoned drummer automatically, subconsciously recognizes size and associates it with sound. So, what about color and lighting? As a drummer I recognize that when I have a drum that is a certain color or shape it plays and ads as a piece of character or inspiration to my kit. These kinds of things can affect the way we play. Though, it is not always a conscious thought while in play, I had to wonder what kind of evolution is going on behind the mind of a drummer that has evolved to controlling the entire room’s environment with enough doohickeys and midi devices to choke a stage engineer or a common DJ. His sound has been compared to “matrix” style surrealism and from here itlooks that way. Has he taken the blue pill? Is he creating an advantage of creative emotive responses throughout his subconscious with this environment of electronically enhanced beat culture? Listen to his tracks like Subconnectors, Ancient wedding or Future Juju Soundsystem and you might think so, too. “Is it real?” Some girl asked, “Is he really playing?” Even I, found myself just standing there for a minute with my arms crossed staring and considering what could be next. I believe KJ Sawka is one of the most entertaining electronic artists I have ever witnessed. His live show is an inspirational platform. An exemplary clash of cultures between the tides of time and generations mashed together like clay spun upon a potter’s wheel. From the live stage lights splashing around his wake you caneven catch a subtle glimpse outlined. A blurry mirage of a potter arched over his work, carefully molding a peace for inspiration. KJ is an omen of drum theory and a master in modern culture impressionism. A sort of beat culture prodigy of the third kind. -----------------Ryan Sheldon, drummersworld.com "As a drummer, Seattle's Kevin Sawka has embraced and mastered many different styles, performing with numerous musical talents including Bill Frisell, Amon Tobin, Reggie Watts of Maktub, Michael Shrieve of Santana, DJ Logic, and Mike Doughty. As KJ Sawka, he continues to win over everyone within earshot as a one-man drum and bass machine. His equipment varies with each performance, but usually includes some combination of laptop running programs such as Reason, ProTools, and Ableton Live, samplers, sequencers and drum pads. It is on the good old fashioned drum kit, however, where he truly makes his presence known. As he manipulates his electronics to provide instrumentals, hooks, and samples, he continually bangs away on the drums, bringing a warm, human element to what could easily be cold, detached, electronic music. He's able to maintain incredible speed on the kit, his drumsticks keeping pace with his programming at 160 beats per minute. The guy is fucking inhuman; he'll play non-stop for an hour at breakneck speed and then speed things up right when you're sure his arm's about to fall off. Synchronized Decompression, his newest release on Wax Orchard, is a relentless drum and bass assault peppered with wild drum solos and vocal samples. If you enjoy your D&B, Decompression is well worth your while. It rates right alongside anything out out by Roni Size and will tide you over until you have the opportunity to see Sawka in his glory onstage." ----------------SIGNAL TO NOISE "Excellent debut full-length release from Seattle artist KJ Sawka. Fans of Amon Tobin should really like this. Sawka plays drum&bass beats live on an electronic drum kit and also programmed the bass-lines and various other electronic sounds on here. He has help from many local musicians - violin, cello, guitar, keyboards, and vocals can all be heard at various points throughout the songs. Much of this album has a dark and sinister sound to it and Sawka’s lightning quick drum playing gives it a sense of urgency (this should have been the soundtrack to The Matrix)." -----------------------KEXP.ORG "KJ Sawka is the sort of drummer who could give Squarepusher a run for his renegade snares. Listening to him, you wonder, 'Is it live or digital? Human or sample?'" ---------The STRANGER, Seattle WA "The Machines may eventually win the day, but in the meantime Kevin Sawka's putting up a strong fight. The complexity of Sawka's drumming -a worthy challenge to the world's best drum'n'bass programmers- gives Siamese the fuel to keep its live techno moving at breakneck speed." -WILLAMETTE WEEKLY, Portland, OR "KJ Sawka are Seattle's answer to Roni Size's Reprazent... but our guys bring the helter-skelter drum 'n' bass liver than the more renowned Brits. Led by maniacally dexterous sticksman Kevin Sawka, this group has been raising pulse rates, body temperatures, and libidos at full tilt for the last year or so. It's about time they sign to a substantial label that can spread their remarkable sound to the hinterlands of our grate [sic] nation and beyond. If anybody's gonna put Roland drum machines out of business, it's the Squarepusher-esque Mr. Sawka." ---------The STRANGER, Seattle WA "Kevin Sawka has the ability to recreate even the most complex of studio drum 'n' bass on a rig that would impress any drummer.” --------The HOOK, Charlottesville VA / / / BIO Seeing Kevin Sawka on the drums is the only way to believe the hype. He can play the most complex of jungle, drum'n'bass and breakbeats utilizing no loops and no extended samples -only his two hands and two feet. If you can catch him in the right moment –live, at a show, or in a studio session- you’ll witness him perform each and every 808 bass kick, snare slap, and compressed highhat tick himself, in real-time. “I’d like to be able to play like that all the time, however, live, I want to give the people the fully-produced, complex sound I’m envisioning, so I not only play the drums, but I manually trigger the basslines, melodies, riffs and now even the light show and projections with my drums –so it’s a lot harder to focus on playing every single little single sound with my sticks. But it’s like I’m playing even more with my sticks lately, not less.” 10 years ago -when drum'n'bass was very near it's zenith in popularity, and Kevin was playing in prominent rock bands in Seattle (grunge was huge)- someone played him an LTJ Bukem track, and, as he says, "It scorched my brain. I dropped everything, and focused solely on how to recreate that on the drums." He heard Dieselboy as well. More brain-scorching. He started writing utilizing the style, and honed his new concepts and approach to the drums. He debuted the new sound in the band 94th Street, a band years ahead of it's time: a pop drum'n'bass band with a sense of humor. While the band didn't gain much momentum, the word about Kevin was out: there's a drummer in Seattle who's performing jungle and drum'n'bass beats on acoustic drums, what was once thought to be absolutely impossible by any human. And here Kevin was making it look easy -like watching a jazz drummer who's said to play "like water flowing," Kevin instead was doling out insanely syncopated d'n'b. Word spread quickly. Seattle resident superstars were checking him out. Michael Shrieve, drummer for Santana for many years and lover of drum'n'bass, took him under his wing and showed him off to anybody and everybody: Andy Summers of the Police, Bill Frisell, Amon Tobin, Jack Dejohnette, Will Calhoun, and many more. Kevin at this time was playing an amazing next-generation drumkit: a custom half-acoustic, half electronic drum kit with one diabolically huge kick drum, one insanely tiny kick drum, three snares, a multitude of trashy sounding cymbals & saw blades, a few electronic drum pads and all the acoustic drums set to electronic triggers. His band at the time -still ahead of it's time- was the all-improvisatory avant-garde drum'n'bass trio Siamese. They toured the country multiple times in '02 and '03, bringing down the house in San Francisco at latenight afterparties and raves; in New Orleans during Jazzfest; opening for LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad in Portland; and, put simply, slaying nay-sayers and dropping the jaws of industry, musicians and fans nationally by performing astonishingly long sets of uptempo jungle and d'n'b without set breaks -without even breaks between songs. Again, seeing is believing. Throughout this timeframe Kevin was always recording his own material, which is now seeing the light of day with his present project "that will never break up" -KJ Sawka. Mostly IDM-based and reminiscent of an uptempo Ninja-Tune-like style, the tracks on Synchronized Decompression should evoke the pioneering work of Sawka's main influences: Amon Tobin and Squarepusher, with a bit of grit a la Dieselboy. Using some of Seattle's most widely-known underground female singers, they bring a balance of Seattle darkness, moodiness and beauty. Live and in the dj scene, Sawka is pushing the envelope with his one-man balls-to-the-wall dancefloor show, which now does include a laptop, samplers, loops, and a rack of gear to produce a full-on production -plus projections, live-action cameras, and intelligent lighting (be on the lookout for some online-only live tracks released in the weeks prior to Synchronized Decompression). For many live music venue gigs, Kevin also employs a full band like heard on the upcoming single Subconnectors -featuring ethereal female vocals, a keyboardist, and a cellist performing similar material in an in-your-face way that only the reverse-engineering, seemingly bionic Mr. Sawka can bring. Welcome, to the 21st Century. |
