Kraków, Poland
Tomasz Wirek
Songs for a Tractor Shed
Tomasz recorded an album of folk-based pieces in an empty tractor shed, using the echo as an instrument.
One microphone, seven pieces, and a shed that sang back.
Tomasz Wirek
The summer
Tomasz Wirek had spent ten years playing in rooms that were too small or too dry, and he wanted to find out what a large, bare space would do for his music. A neighbour outside Kraków had a tractor shed that stood empty from spring to harvest, and agreed to lend it for the summer.
He borrowed the shed from the neighbour and spent a week learning where in the room each note sounded best. He walked the floor with a violin and a small drum, clapping, and marked sweet spots on the concrete with chalk. The back corner, he found, gave a long tail to low notes.
He then recorded twenty-six takes of seven pieces with one microphone and never overdubbed. Neighbours drifted in to listen, and two of them ended up singing on the fifth track. His mentor, a sound engineer, had told him in the second call to stop fixing mistakes, and he took it seriously. A swallow’s nest above the door can be heard on the third piece.
The mixing was the part he could not do alone. It was finished in the final fortnight by a friend of his mentor, over video call, with Tomasz sitting in the shed listening through headphones and saying only yes or no. Most of the work was taking things away.
Songs for a Tractor Shed runs to forty minutes. It can be heard on the fellows page, and the neighbour who lent the shed has the first copy on a tape player in his kitchen.
