TURQUOISE

Wow! This is very good! Excelenet prog band! I was a little confused when I read they were a prog folk outfit where, upon hearing the CD, I think they're really closer to the neo prog nest. There are some nice acoustic parts but not as much as to classify them as folk. Well this may be relevant if you need to label it. For it's just plain good music as far as I know. What really stands out in the whole album is Katarzyna Jajko. Even in a country where it looks like every month or so it seems to surface a great band with an outstanding female lead singer, this one really shines! Her voice is soft, beuatiful and her singing is quite moving. The musicians help a lot, though. This band is a tight unit where their obviously great musicanship is used for the sake of the songs. No ego trips here. It seems everything works for the music itself and the instrumental breaks are as good as the singing parts. Very fine piece of great music that you enjoy from beginning to end. A nice surprise. Polland is delivering some of the best prog bands nowadays.

Despite their very proggy-sounding name and some very beautiful and intricate album covers, Turquoise do (for the most part) not play a particularly progressive style of music, at least not here on their first album. What they do offer though is a pleasant enough sound that is fairly uncomplicated but well-played, energetic and inflected at times with just enough regional flair to qualify as prog folk. And there are a couple of notable exceptions to that statement that portend well for the band, most notably the extended pieces “Dajemma” and “Wez Zed Zobamnie”.

The one caveat to Turquoise’ music is that the vocals are all sung in Polish. That said, other languages have never been something to put off prog fans, and indeed many claim to not care about lyrics anyway so that shouldn’t dissuade anyone who doesn’t know Polish from enjoying their music. And the inclusion of the instrumental “Dajemma” with its lush electric guitar and keyboard arrangements will leave listeners wanting more.

The band will be inevitably compared to their fellow countrymen Quidam, and in the case of the guitar work this is a fair; however, Mostly Autumn or Karnataka would be more accurate comparisons. I’ve seen them likened to the Hungarian act You and I as well, another Mostly Autumn-influenced band. Like those artists, the guitars may qualify as neo, but the tone of the compositions and warm feminine vocals, as well as occasional ethnic nuances, place them more comfortably inside the world of neo- folk. The mini-epics “Strach” and “Wez Zed Zobamnie” provide the best examples of this, with the initial ranging electric guitar riffs giving way to Katarzyna Jajko’s lush voice and some pretty adept acoustic guitar fingering courtesy of Alexander Zelazny. I’m not sure why the band elected to wait until the end of the album to introduce this side of their sound; “Dajemma” hints at their ability to craft true progressive compositions, but one has to work through the more folksy numbers leading up to these two closing songs to really get at why they are considered progressive in the first place.

Another example of the softer side of the band’s music can be heard in the lazy To Co W Nas (Spelnienie), which manages to build just enough to provide an understated lift to what it basically a ballad as the song winds to a close. This is one of the better tunes on the album to represent the band’s overall signature sound, along with the less-pronounced and also softly executed short instrumental “Utrenja”.

Jajko left the group after this album for some reason, and would be replaced by a pair of female vocalists by the time the band released their second studio album. That one leans much closer to neo- prog in my opinion, and while the production is a bit more polished I also think the band lost a bit of their subtle charm, certainly not unusual in a sophomore effort. These two would be replaced by yet another woman vocalist on the band’s third effort, the 2007 release ‘Futura’. I haven’t heard that one yet but in reading various reviews it seems the band took a similar route to groups like Karnataka – away from prog folk and into more commercially-friendly neo territory.

So if you want to enjoy this band and are a die-hard folky, this is the album for you. Not a masterpiece or anything, but the band does manage to put together a pretty decent bit of music for your listening pleasure. I’m going to go with three stars here, although with a few more listens may come back and bump that up if the music reveals more depth than seems to be there for me at present. Well recommended to progressive folk fans, especially those who enjoy the genre’s rich ethnic and cultural variety.

peace

Another interesting discovery in the world of modern Polish Prog, Turquoise came from the town of Lesko in south-eastern Poland and appeared at the dawn of the millenium, featuring female singer Katarzyna Jajko along with guitarist Alexander Zelazny, drummer Marcin Zwonarz, bassist Sebastian Klus and keyboardist Marek Sokol.Their self-titled debut was released on Ars Mundi in 2002.

On their first effort Turquoise played melodic Neo Progressive Rock, typical of the style established by QUIDAM, with emphasis on the lyricism and the elaborate melodies.And the band had all the right elements to contribute something attractive to the scene: An excellent female vocalist with an ethereal and crystalline voice supported by melodic, sligthly symphonic and deeply atmospheric arrangements.The music is mostly smooth and dreamy with occasional stronger guitar riffing but the majority of this album is based on interesting solos, atmospheric synths and the changing moods created by the alternation between soft but vocal- heavy moments and secure instrumental themes.This way Turquoise manage to come up with a release full of memorable material without being accesible, taking care of any listener fond of albums with melodic content.

This is definitely an excellent album for all fans of modern Polish Prog in the vein of QUIDAM, ANAMOR, SATELLITE or MILLENIUM.But this is also a strongly recommended debut for all Progressive Rock fans, who love deep atmospheres over complexity...3.5 stars.

TURQUOISE is / was a progressive folk band from Lesko in the southeastern tip of Poland that formed in 2002 and released three albums in the first decade of the 2000s. Whether this band is still technically active is unclear but the last album appeared in 2007 so at the very least TURQUOISE has been on a very extended hiatus. While the core of the band remained the same throughout the three album run, the band is notable for having different female vocalists on each album. This self-titled debut was recorded the same year of the band's formation and featured vocalist Katarzyna Jajko along with Alexander Zelazny (guitar), Marek Sokól (keyboards), Marcin Zwonarz (percussion) and Sebastian Klus (bass). Of those members only Sokól would leave before the third album.

This debut album features ten tracks with a playing time of just over 46 minutes and showcases a mix of soft sensual folk music along with moments of dramatic keyboard dominated symphonic prog. The band has been compared to fellow Poles Quidam (which the band features members of) as well as Hungary's You And I as well as Mostly Autumn. The Lesko region of Poland is famous for its traditional Polish folk music and one of the regions where traditional Polish lifestyles still take place and the music of TURQUOISE delivers some of that lost innocence with a fairytale-like display of soft folk guitar strumming with almost lullaby type vocal deliveries. In addition the acoustic guitars add some elements of classical music and the songs are lushly orchestrated with a slickness that adds to the dreaminess that the album cover art suggests.

All lyrics are in Polish so for folkies who relish in lyrical messages you won't comprehend a word unless you speaka the lingo. Traditional folk guitar melodies sound haunting almost like the approach of Ritchie Blackmore's folk project Blackmore's Night however Jajko's childlike vocal style keep the entire album in a very calm and pacifying moodiest even when keyboard arrangements pick up steam and the occasional guitar solo is allowed to go for a stroll. In some ways the band does have some neo-prog qualities only adapted to a very texture-rich style of folk music that doesn't evoke a lot of the Polish countryside as one would expect from the Lesko region. While the majority of the album is acoustic, the rock aspects do come and go with some tracks like "A Ja / A Ty" delivering a soft breezy style of rock that makes me think of what The Cranberries would sound like if they drifted into progressive territory.

The debut by TURQUOISE is a nice gentle listening experience from the south of Poland but seems a little too tame for its own good. I would rather have an entirely progressive folk album or one that turns up the rock aspects a bit more. It seems uneven and even indecisive in which direction it wants to take. Despite it all the compositions are pleasant and the production is excellent with the primary focus being on Jajko's sensual vocal style that gives the album an overall serene effect. While there's nothing on TURQUOISE's debut that will make you wish you hadn't experienced it, for some reason this one just seems like it doesn't deliver what it promises. It's a little too safe without expanding into any particular territory that really grabs me. It's an okay album for sure but unfortunately doesn't excel to any level that gets my juices flowing either.