In between the recording of the Polish
sung debut album Bas-nie and the succesful Moonshine CD, the
survival of Collage was by no means a certainty. Originally titled
Zmiany, Changes contains outtakes, rare
B-sides and demo recordings recor-ded in their search for the
ultimate band. You'll hear no less than four different singers, as
well as four keyboard players.
However, all tracks have been written by
the tandem Mirek Gil & Wojtek Szadkowski, friends and founders of
Collage from day one. Originally released as a tape in their native
Poland and boasting eight tracks, this CD version has been augmented
to a respectable total of no fewer than 13 tracks. Again the
power-ful, inventive drumming, the melodic layers of keyboards and
the magisterial guitar playing are the trademarks of this band.
As with Basnie it is difficult for
someone not speaking their native language to fully appreciate the
songs sung in Polish. On top of this "Nocy Zamyslona" is rather dark
because of the lame rhythm and the inclusion of violin. Then again
in "Just Like Heaven," the band shows what a great live potential
they have. Here the vocals are to be situated in the Peter Nicholls
(IQ) street. Both "Lovely Day" and "The Blues" stem from the 1992
demo tape and were later reworked into the versi-ons we all know
from their Moonshine album. Of course here they are both sung by
Jarek Wajk instead of the better known Robert Amirian. Also both
songs have completely different lyrics as opposed to the finished
product. So in a way this album can be seen as an extension to the
already released albums by Collage but you have to see it as a
retrospective in the career of an upcoming band just like the
Beatles’ Live At BBC output. Full marks to Marquee for the
outstan-ding packaging although I wished the rundown of the tracks
in the booklet had also been done in English instead of just Polish.
An opportunity wasted!
