Written by Marilù Ciabattoni
Discovered via Musosoup
Discovered via https://app.musosoup.com #sustainablecurator
Patryk Kania’s latest EP is a very chill, indie rock (sometimes indie pop) album that mixes your favourite sounds from early 2010s artists of the likes of Cigarettes After Sex and The xx in a compact five-track project by the title of Gin Mill Club.
At times guitar and drums driven, at times beats driven, Patryk takes us on a cruise (as he says in “Boating”) across nostalgic sceneries and descriptions, prayers and obsessions. This is a tactile EP, meant to be listened to with your eyes closed as the artist’s voice transports you to his world.
The cover art of the project is also very interesting: a comic-book-style drawing of a boy wearing a necklace and looking into the mirror, where the words Gin Mill Club behind his back are reflected.
The opening track “Gin Mill Club” sets the mood for the album and invites the listeners into this mysterious club. Patryk’s voice is hushed yet full of emotion as if he was careful to not be heard by somebody, adding to the secrecy of this “club.”
The reference to Fight Club is almost obvious. In a similarly cynical way, Patryk sings, “We can do what we wonder, ‘cause there is no god.”
I love the flow in the chorus of “Girlfriend:” The artist sings about this girl “wearing western clothes and talking with your eastern charm.” A stranger, essentially. A foreigner.
His description of this girl is at times sensual, at times mundane, mixing “strawberry, peaches and Bacardi,” rocking “that new look I saw on TV.”
“Boating” incorporates more beats than the previous two tracks while still remaining a chill song. The repeated lines “Let me into you / Let you into me” and “What got into you? / What got into me?” feel like a summer breeze at the beach, which is exactly the feel the artist wants to convey.
Then we have “Mallorca,” another song that recalls the seaside. With the same dreamy vocals as the previous tracks, Patryk opens with two existential questions: “Was it always gonna end like this? / Is the blood that carries through me weak?”
We cannot make sense of the lyrics. We can just let ourselves be carried along by the artist’s ethereal singing, hinting at distant places (like the beaches of Mallorca) that seem to take on a divine meaning as he asks, “Can’t you see the beaches waiting for you?”
“Pearls” closes the album with dreamy acoustic guitars and whispers we can hear throughout. The lyrics are very poetic, once again recalling the tactile quality of the album: Patryk mentions materials like gold and silver and colours like green and blue.
Mimicking a rap song, he sings, “We got it, we own it / We got it, we flaunt it / The best in the region / The best of the season,” recalling the mundane feel in the girl he mentions in “Girlfriend,” who also appears here: “My girlfriend’s beautiful like pearls / Shiny on the outside, tough on the inside.” I like how the two tracks are interconnected: it gives continuity to the project as if it were following a storyline.
Dreamily, Gin Mill Club closes as the instruments in “Pearls” slowly fade away, leaving us with this bittersweet (more sweet than bitter) taste in our mouths, waiting for Patryk Kania’s next project to come along.