Up until the end of last week, I’d never heard of Polish group RZWD (short for “rozwód,” translating to “divorce”). That’s when, on a whim, I dove in to their recent sophomore release GAPS. I haven’t really stopped thinking about them since. RZWD makes music that falls into a lot of broad categories—post-punk, noise, techno—but never holds still long enough to take the shape of a single generic box. Obviously, I like this. Perhaps also obviously, it’s not the easiest music to write about. I like this, too, at least in theory, and I’m going to try to like it in practice, too.

Perhaps the most important thing to know about RZWD is that they are meant to be heard as a live band. As heavily modulated as their music is, there’s nothing more central to it than the semi-improvised interactions between players. GAPS is eight tracks of emergence, of the unexpected as it springs from the confluence of core trio members Damian “Ski” Kowalski (drums, electronics), Krzysztof Rogalski (bass guitar), and Cezary Rosiński (dubs, synth, electronics) and their compatriots swrcfx (production, dubs, synth, guitar), Danielius Pancerovas (saxophone), and Krzysztof Freeze Ostrowski (electronics). No one sound or player serves as a singular focal point.

Even so, there is a distinct and almost paradoxical palette that unifies GAPS, lush and dark with accents of chrome and neon. Industrial edges make sharp hits as dully throbbing trance and dub beats that drive the music forward. Electronic artifacts materialize and dematerialize at will, yet the rhythms on each track make it almost impossible to stay still. It’s sweaty, it’s mechanical. It’s the kind of music only people can make well, and only if they have a sense of the angular avant-garde. GAPS could be the soundtrack for some unforeseen cybernetic club scene, no DJs or DAWs required.

This is a rather jumbled description of GAPS because GAPS is a tremendously unpredictable album. On “Diesel,” RZWD jumps from robotic beeps to disco beats to wailing sax to strobing synths. “LED House” moves between jazz, jungle, IDM, and darkwave at a frenetic pace. Midtempo electropop spreads in every direction at once on “Euro Track V2,” and so on. By the time you’ve named a style, the band has probably already changed direction, players bouncing off one another very nearly at the speed of sound itself. And yet—and yet—it’s utterly compelling work. It’s too driving to be terribly cerebral and too complex to drone. It fits nowhere. It fits everywhere. It is as human as it is electric, as emotional as it is unnatural. RZWD makes music that is chaotic not for the sake of chaos, but because that’s one of the many ways that sound can go. They come by bedlam honestly and lean straight into it. Given the state of the world right now, this might just make GAPS the most relevant dance music I’ve heard in a minute.

8/10

About the author’s biases:

Adriane needs a little catharsis at all times and a whole lot of catharsis to make it through the beginning of 2025.