Biography
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Born
1976 (age 48)
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Born In
Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland
Jacek Sienkiewicz is definitely one of the pioneers of contemporary electronic music, both in his native Poland and Eastern Europe in general. He is also a prime example of hard working, highly original artist that takes no compromises and follows his very own vision, even if it means a lack of visible commercial success.
Jacek is by no means a bandwagon jumper, quite the contrary: some of his ideas, even sketched via his past releases, are still to be recognized and appreciated by every current trend followers.
Jacek started his musical career in mid-90s as a DJ, championing tracks by masters of stripped-down, hypnotic club music, soon to become known as 'minimal’. But with all respect due to the classics of 90s Detroit and Chicago, his vision of modern club music soon became much too broad to be pigeonholed as yet another Robert Hood follower.
Experiments with analogue machines soon led Jacek to producing his own music – and playing it live. By ’96 he completely ditched DJing, and his very first live show – which took place at Warsaw’s Centre for Contemporary Art – was a example of his love of vintage Roland synths and analogue sequencing. Soon, the Recognition label came to life – issuing debut CD sounding equally rough and melodic, a blueprint of things to come.
After first few vinyl releases, Jacek spent some time living in Berlin – years before everyone and their mothers moved there. This resulted in a string of EPs for German labels – like then-budding Trapez, underrated De:Bug Hartwaren and finally prolific Klang. Early Recognition singles found their way to Sven Vath’s record bag and soon Jacek has become the first artist to release a full album (and another two to follow) on Frankfurt’s finest, Cocoon Records.
Recognition Records is by no means the most important factor in realizing Jacek’s unique vision of club music – definitely dancefloor-friendly, but also bearing some sort of organic complexity and a rare attention to detail. Recognition catalogue is now approaching 30 releases, most of them documenting Jacek’s constatnt experiments with sound and rhythm, proving his unparalleled approach to the music formerly known as minimal techno. The label is also a platform for lesser-known musicians and friends, and releases by the likes of Etiop and Giro Arana, albeit somewhat difficult, prove that Jacek takes no compromises when it comes to individual artistic vision and quality.
Jacek Sienkiewicz, keeping far from current trends and fashions, definitely chose the hard path to follow: uncompromising, fusing slamming beats with the very own kind of melodic melancholy, is not an artist that is easy to pigeonhole. Even while collaborating with some like-minded friends, as recent EPs with Pier Bucci and Marcin Oz prove, he is clearly different. This, however, does not stop him from causing riotous reactions from the crowd – playing all over the world, from Cocoon parties in Ibiza, DEMF in Detroit, all the biggest festivals in Europe – to small, intimate gigs in underground clubs and bars, he always tends to surprise, mesmerise and finally rise the roof up high.
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