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"His spoken word/live sampled music shows are hilarious and politically powerful."
- Stylus Magazine, Winnipeg
"A ubiquitous musical prankster."
- The Montreal Gazette
"A madcap Montreal artist-anarchist...There's no stopping Nawrocki! And who'd want to?"
- The Toronto Star
"Nawrocki isn't out of touch with the world. If anything, he's more in touch with what's really going on than most of us, and because of that, wants to change a few things. He uses any means at his very entertaining and creative disposal to get his messages across."
- Uptown, Winnipeg
"A born showman who never lets his audiences pass a dull evening...his shows don't disappoint."
- The Globe & Mail
"Montreal's most exuberant anarchist has put (a series of letters that his uncle wrote to his father during the Nazi occupation of Poland) to the music of his violin & a series of delay pedals. The result is a touching & often haunting narrative of Nazi totalitarianism from a first-person perspective. Nawrocki is utterly inspiring as he captivates the audience with his jovial voice, playful violin and stories of anarchist resistance. His act can be described as interactive trance-folk with elegance, humour & emotion."
- The McGill Daily, Montreal
"Radical politics rarely translate to nuanced poetry, but Nawrocki grasps that they're easier to push with charm than with harm. As for the music, that's a hole in one. Nawrocki's pulsating blacklight Gypsy pop harbours the subtlety often absent in his words."
- The Montreal MIRROR
Duck Work
Duck Work makes top 10 of 2004!
Jordan Zivitz, rock critic for Montreal's daily, The Gazette, cited 'Duck Work' as one of the top ten, local CDs from 2004, alongside releases from The Arcade Fire, The Dears, Sixtoo, etc.
'A career's worth of ideas, raging against the machine while veering from the alehouse to the dance floor. Staggeringly eclectic'
- The Montreal Gazette
'Nawrocki has crafted a stimulating concept record that wades through the dystopia of a world living in the wake of 9-11. He creates aural installation that, while completely listenable, still has something pertinent to say. 4/5
- FFWDWeekly, Calgary
'A mystic journey through a diverse selection of heavenly looped violins, warm percussion and insightful spoken word.There's never a dull moment on the disc.
- Urbnet
'Radical politics rarely translate to nuanced poetry, but Nawrocki grasps that they're easier to push with charm than with harm. As for the music, that's a hole in one. Nawrocki's pulsating blacklight Gypsy pop harbours the subtlety often absent in his words. An engaging, inventive musician'
- The Montreal MIRROR
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| Check out this interview with Norman after his most recent show in Chicoutimi!
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BEATS, STRINGS & BRAINFOOD
Norman Nawrocki's solo spoken word and live music shows
Norman Nawrocki is known internationally not only for his hilarious and raunchy 'sex-positive' comedy cabarets, his radical 'community cabarets,' his books, bands, lectures and workshops, but also for his topical and mesmerizing spoken word with solo music performances.
His solo music shows combine either poetry or short fiction excerpts with original music. He performs the texts in English or French, while creating soundscapes with his amplified violin, viola or cello, and other instruments. Pre-recorded beats, live samples and loops, assorted pedals and toys (vibrating bass dildo, a marble-in a-frying-pan, dish-washing brushes, drum sticks, knives, beer bottles) help modify the sound of his strings.
The shows also feature variations of traditional, East European divorce music. Nawrocki is also known to play solo violin for traditional Jewish, Ukrainian, Polish, Estonian, or bizarro non-traditional weddings.
In addition to the 50 or so albums he has released with his many bands ( see DISCOGRAPHY), he has two solo CD albums of spoken word with music: ' Duck Work ,' & ' Letters from Poland .'
He also performs purely instrumental music shows; or spoken word without music.
Nawrocki's solo spoken word/live music shows can be 'theme' or issue oriented if requested
( eg, anti-war, student concerns, community organizing, workplace organizing, etc.).
Nawrocki's solo spoken word/live music shows can be theme oriented if requested.
Sample show themes:
1. Anti-globalization -
worldwide efforts to take back control
2. Re-claiming the city -
bicycle activist, anti-car, neighbourhood control
3. A history of anarchism - the people, the events, the ideas
4. 'Rebel Moon: @narchist rants & poems' - based on his book of same name - performs
excerpts
5. 'No Masters! No Gods!' -
based on his book of same name - performs excerpts
6. 'The Anarchist & the Devil Do Cabaret' - based on his book of same name
7. 'Anti-war beats & strings' - to fight 'war', not wars
8. 'Anti-sexism, pro-sex beats & strings'
- respectful sex
9. Workplace organizing -
songs, poems, music to help organize
10. Your show! - name the theme and Norman can put together a show around it.
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"Wow, I'm impressed! Listened to the album and I loved it. It made me think of the train album that Steve Reich did with regards to the trains taking inmates to Aushwitz....it touched me a lot. "
- Dan Behrman, Radio-Canada
Buy this now! |
'Letters from Poland'
CD, 45 min., Les Pages Noires
Norman's hauntingly beautiful, East European flavored new solo CD . The 45 minute album contains spoken word versions of 12 historical letters (6 English, 6 French) from 1937 - 1995, extracted from his last book ('The Anarchist & The Devil Do Cabaret, ' Black Rose Books 2003, translated now as ' L'anarchiste et le diable,' Lux Editeur , 2006).
The letters are from an eccentric Polish uncle to Norman's father, and are set to original music. Norman plays looped violin and viola, the accordion, piano and a 142 string Ukrainian/Polish hammered dulcimer known as the tsymbaly, and provides vocals for the letters. There's also one accordion instrumental and a traditional Polish song sung by Norman's elderly father.
Alternately poignant, humourous, bittersweet and declamatory, the series of letters, trace the love & longing of one brother for another, and document this man's growing resistance to the rise of Nazism before and during the second World War.
Norman's last solo release was the beat-rich, anti-war, anti-Empire ' Duck Work ' CD (2004), an album that was cited by The Montréal Gazette as one of the top 10 local English releases alongside The Arcade Fire, The Dears, Sixtoo, and others. 'Letters from Poland' is a more minimalist production where Norman's acoustic strings predominate. Available from good music shops, or on-line, here, from Les Pages Noires. *
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Track Listing:
1. Pourquoi suis-je anarchiste? (6:03)
2. Mary Kelly (3:18)
3. The Empire Goes to War (4:14)
4. Butterflies (3:58)
5. Trumpet the Walls (5:38)
6. By What Right, America? (6:37)
7. Oui Monsieur (2:25)
8. CNN News (5:43)
9. The Real Terrorists (5:07)
10. A Modest Proposal (2:50)
11. Midnight Mass (3:43)
12. The Wind (1.04)
13. Why Am I An Anarchist? (5:29)
14. Duck Work (2:03)
TOTAL RUNNING TIME: 61 minutes
Format: CD
Catalogue #: LPN018C
Individuals order from the catalogue
Record stores/book stores order from Winnipeg's G-7 Welcoming Committee Records. Buy this now! |
Duck Work
Veteran Montréal musical wizard/writer/ activist Norman Nawrocki (from the legendary Rhythm Activism, Bakunin's Bum & DaZoque!) delivers his exciting new sonic attack against the forces of ignorance, greed & xenophobia: 'DUCK WORK.' It's his 18th release since 1986 (see Discography), but his first solo CD.
Compelling, topical & provocative, this beat rich onslaught of hypnotic bass, percussive & driving, looped violins, viola & cello, & incendiary spoken word, is a stinging & passionate critique of America's quest for empire & the web of deceit excusing it. It's also an upbeat call to action.
Inside 'DUCK WORK:'
* a shocking list of America's 100 years of global military interventions;
* a scathing critique of the hypocrisy behind the USA's shameful war on 'terrorism;'
* an ode to an Irish woman's courageous axe attack on a USA war plane;
* a rib-tickling proposal for Canada to invade & neutralize the USA;
* 30 good reasons to become an anarchist; & more
'DUCK WORK' mixes catchy, danceable anarcho-house, seductive drum & bass, jazzy ska, punked up celtic rock, electronica & experimental, melodic ambient music. Gets heads & brains nodding & fists pumping the air.
The CD offers a powerful musical anti-dote to current official lies, and suggests the need and the potential for everyday, individual & popular rebellion against Empire, for anarchy.
DUCK WORK is a radical musical adventure for Nawrocki. It was co-produced with three of Montreal's top, beat-happy, sound engineers (connected with the city's dance, hip hop & rap scenes). Two pieces are in French.
Guaranteed to inspire thinkers, rebels, music lovers & Djs. From one of Canada's foremost practitioners of 'creative, subversive resistance.' Watch for tour dates coming for October 04.
Listen: Why Am I an Anarchist? |
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