Lukasz Lach, the frontman of renowned Polish rock group L.Stadt, recently launched a solo project with very considerable promise. The project’s main concept is to cooperate with visual artists, who will work with Lach’s original songs to complement the striking atmospheres his songwriting inspires and is inspired from. Lach’s first solo release is a track/video called “Don’t Haunt Me”. He wrote the track and, for this time, handled all video work — concept, footage, editing. This week, Lach is in Berlin recording the next video for the project. Following that, he is making a video in Poland at the Contemporary Museum of Art using recent footage from Istanbul.
In regards to “Don’t Haunt Me”, both the the video and track itself are exceptional. Small touches in the video, like the shadow of passing clouds over a serene meadow, perfectly complement Lach’s blissful voice and accompanying instruments, which here are showcased by a mellow bass, tugging strings, and gentle acoustic strums. The strings add a dramatic flair during the emotional chorus, where Lach croons “just don’t haunt me anymore.” I’ve had the opportunity to listen to a few yet-to-be-released tracks from this project, and it’s quality all-around. While, comparatively to L.Stadt, the mellower singer/songwriter aesthetic is to be somewhat expected, Lach is doing something quite special with his solo endeavor. I’ll be posting Lach’s videos as they’re released, since the project contains some of the strongest songs I’ve heard this year thus far.
It’s like Scott Walker in the 70’s, Lee hazlewood and Brendan perry all somehow combined into one person. The disconcerting refusal to come up a half step on the ‘haunt me’ portion of the chorus is a clever bit of songwriting, too.
“Don’t Haunt Me” is a solid track. It seems to mix a contemporary feel with artists like Rome and Ulver who specialize in this darker form of folk music paired with a soundtrack/ambient atmosphere. It could easily suit a film soundtrack like what we tend to see in Coen Brother’s movies. Interesting!