Enigmatic electronic producer Bogdan Raczynski returns on April 5th with a 2xLP entitled Rave ‘Till You Cry due out on the Warp Records‘ offshoot Disciples. Collecting together previously unheard tracks and versions from the producer’s past, the compilation is Raczynski’s first release since 2007’s Alright!.
Born in Poland, the producer eventually moved with his family to the US, before heading off to art school in Japan. After dropping out of school, Raczynski was homeless living on the streets of Tokyo and crashing with various friends. Rumored to have been discovered by Aphex Twin while sleeping on the streets in 1999, Raczynski would go on to release three albums in quick succession that year via Richard D. James and Grant Wilson-Claridge‘s label Rephlex: Thinking Of You, Samurai Math Beats, and Boku Mo Wakaran.
Spanning his work across genres like IDM, Breakbeat, and Drum & Bass, Rave ‘Till You Cry displays the artist’s inventive compositional style and facility for crafting off-kilter rhythmic structures. Often playful and menacing at the same time, Raczynski’s tightly woven compositions always seem to house some fascinatingly quirky sonic elements alongside ripping beats. Describing his early days hanging with the Rephlex crew as a way to frame this upcoming collection of tracks, the producer explains:
“In 1999, during a particular bus tour with Aphex, Squarepusher, Russell Haswell, Cylob, DMX Krew, Ovuca, and Wallace, I had a shitty, brown, wool coat. It must’ve fucking smelled like piss. Who the fuck wears wool on tour? But I was blissfully mired in some kind of lucid haze, conscious yet on autopilot. Like a pig in mud.
More mysteriously, they let me stay on the bus. I was Perce Blackborow, that Welsh sailor who stowed away on Shackleton’s failed attempt to reach the South Pole. Somehow, I’d blagged my way on board but fuck if I knew what I was doing or where I was going.
I do remember gigs and alcohol and going absolutely fucking mental on the energy steaming off of the dancefloor. It never got old. My existence was like some kind of extended out of body experience. To this day when the trifecta of early morning, cold blasts of air as you exit the venue, and smoke enter my senses I temporarily exit, like rave PTSD.
There’s a popular trope in movies where a young somebody unearths a dusty, long-gone nobody. When some kind folks asked about doing this Disciples thing I was bemused. It is less to do with humility than a self-assessed impostor syndrome that I wonder how I’ve been able to squeeze my way in, again.”
Listen to Bogdan Raczynski’s Rave ‘Till You Cry track “134 32iii“…
