Michał Wiśniowski is a Polish sound artist hailing from Krakow, with his interests revolving around field recordings and ambience. Acts And Recitals, his latest album, is literally a sonic deposit of nine field recordings (or stories as the artist refers to them), captured in a one-month-long journey to Georgia. Wiśniowski created an audio log of found sounds, characterized by the spontaneous truth of the material, which is presented raw and organic. This is a fine and pure example of phonography. 

The sounds are from various performative objects and machinery, natural and human-produced elements, voices,  music and sounds from speakers, urban sounds and so on, which are formed in a series of unified pieces. The perfection of these recordings is so powerful that it transcends far beyond strict field recording definition, venturing into the realms of musique concrète.  The musicality of these sounds are both evident and uplifting, creating several different moods and atmospheres.

Moreover, Wiśniowski’s process is a documentation of the various sonic incidents as well, put together in that manner, a sum of ephemeral details of a sonic landscape. There are no cut-ups or a sound collage manifestation, or doesn’t seem so, giving headroom and leaving the sounds to breathe in their natural habitat, with zero processing. In reality, this is a conceptual documentary in sound, without any info on the visited places, just a single dot on a map, signifying Georgia. That information is more than enough. 

With Acts And Recitals Wiśniowski invites us to a spectacular sonic narration, where the honesty of the material is intense enough to drag you on a voyage of wonders. I really hope that this album will find its way to a physical release too.  To check out this digital album fly in here