RZWD – Gaps (Carton Records) – On Gaps, RZWD tell us they aimed to “craft dance noise club music on their own terms, pushing the limits of what a live band can be in achieving this”, they go on to tell us that “the core idea behind Gaps was to use developed themes as a starting point for further variations and exploration within Dance noise club music. This time, the instrumentation includes bass and an ever-expanding, mutating layer of modulation” – scrub all that though, this sounds far more instictive than they make it sound, if this is dance music then the dancing is going to be wildly all over the place and well, if you like dance music by all means tune in and dance like a maniac, more importantly, if you don’t like dance music then definitely tune in! This is for everyone, this is other rock, this is pointy, this is sharp, this is delightfully fractured, warm, inviting, this is fluid in an awkwardly good way. It is mostly electonic, it feels very organic, analogue in terms of texture and yes that might be one of several contradictions just made but who cares, bottom line here is this is really really good – mutating layers of modulation indeed, played beyond rigid tempo measurements. Recorded live as a live band, that bit is crucial to what is going on here, recorded in 2023, released in the Autumn of 2024 and sent to us in the second week of 2025, it might have figured somewhere on that (rest of the) best albums of ’24 if it had landed here in time…

Polonais, RZWD se plait à dévier. Avec GAPS les trois hommes, déboulonnés, servent une électro que Diesel feat. Danielius Pancerovas fait grincer, frétiller, breaker et syncoper bruitistement. La « DANCE NOISE CLUB MUSIC » du groupe le décale à n’en pas douter, LED House en renvoyant une version techno obsédante aux motifs lunaires. Là encore on coupe la dynamique, à plusieurs reprises, pour une issue prenante aux recoins triturés. Euro Track V2 [feat. K. Freeze O.], aérien puis en secousses plombées, s’inscrit dans la même qualité insoumise. Outskirt Dub…vire dub, spatial, apaisé. La palette de RZWD s’étend, concluante. On plane, pour le coup, avant de se livrer à d’autres tumultes. Hantel V3, d’ailleurs, castagne avec force noise et vrilles soniques vertigineuses.

Sur la suite Trigger Fitt V2, dub dépaysant, perché et strié lui aussi de séquences lacérées, poste un vacarme indus-noise et j’en passe à décorner un cerf. RZWD, dont l’ouvrage voit le jour chez Carton Records, truelle ensuite un Muttercoke drone aux atours presque orchestraux mais éloignés, personne n’y verra d’objection, de toute normalité. Sa fin retombe, après cette embardée arrive Footwalk qui en ruades psychiatriques sonne la fin des débats, sacrément attrayants, à s’envoyer maintes et maintes fois avant d’en faire le tour et d’en capter toute la riche matière.

Rozwód, a band based on the outskirts of Poland’s metropolises Wrocław and Toruń, create music that sounds recycled, juxtaposing elements of the rock tradition with electronics recalling the likes of My Disco or Radian. Trance motifs, monotonous ambient passages, and sonic interventions in the background are balanced by a dense ‘rock’ sound albeit one achieved with a set of instruments unusual for the genre.