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Q&A Małgola, No
From Poland but Cardiff-based since 2017, Małgola Gulczynska is 50% of synthpop duo 100% Rabbit; one of several members of indiepop ensemble Live, Do Nothing; and on-off musical collaborator with Welsh-language singer/rapper/spoken word artist Teifi. She’s also just released a chiptune-styled album under her solo name of Małgola, No. Emma Way found out more…
Playing in so many different projects, how do you make Małgola, No un- apologetically you?
I write and produce all the songs myself – I don’t get any help from anybody in the crea- tive process. With 100% Rabbit, there will be my words or vocal melodies; Adam Sowiński and I will produce the songs together and his contribution would be much larger than just mixing the music. In other bands, I usually just play what they want me to play – which takes a big load off my shoulders!
Your new release The Cave Of Llord Skull is a chiptune-styled re-recording of the previous Małgola, No album – 2022’s Polish-language Jaskinia Chrabiej Czaszki.
also called Earthbound in different countries – that blew my mind. For those old NES games, you need to limit yourself to four or five sounds; you can’t have any chords, you can only have a couple of notes at a time. I thought that would be a brilliant challenge. I learned a programme called a tracker, in which you com- pose with original chiptune sounds.
It’s fascinating that you can only use so few notes at a time. Isn’t it! It’s different for every engine. This one is 8-bit, then you have 16-bit. So you can have more sounds but I was like, no I like a challenge! So I went into deep water straight- away…
The original album is conceptual – it’s got lyr- ics in the form of comic book strips and each song could be a separate story. I like to chal- lenge myself to do new things: with Małgola, No, I tend to make every album different from the previous one. My first album was piano ballads; my second album used synthesiser and computer based sounds; my third is pop-rock songs in Polish.
Me and my partner used to explore old com- puter games, emulating old Nintendo games. I heard the soundtrack to one game, Mother–
Have you ever thought about writing music for video game soundtracks? I would love to. I do create some soundtracks for movies and animation, usually for univer- sity students or for graduates. It’s usually not paid work, but I felt I wanted to try and do instrumental music as well because I just like music. I just find songwriting and composing fascinating.
How does Wales’ live music scene compare to Poland’s?
My experience is that there are certain strug- gles that we face in both. Maybe it’s sort of
a global trend, or a European trend, that peo- ple don’t go to gigs as often as they used to; I think it started happening before COVID. Say 10 years ago, there was a big boom for elec- tronic music, and DJ sets rather than concerts became more popular in the UK. I think there is more interest in live music in the UK than in Poland generally – but certain kinds of mu- sic or nights. In Poland, we don’t have many open mics – in the UK it’s common. I also find the audiences in Wales way more encouraging and way more supportive. I don’t want to be too negative about Poland because I only visit every so often, and I play small shows.
What’s your next project?
I have two I’m working on at the moment. One is going to be r’n’b style, sort of 90s or early 2000s flavour. The other is an acoustic project with ballads based on the piano, a little bit back to the roots of my first album. On that album, I worked on my own – all of the instrumen- tal parts I recorded myself, or with MIDI for string or brass parts. For this album, I’m hop- ing to involve more musicians in creating it, and get real acoustic sounds.
The Cave Of Llord Skull is out now. Info:
malgolano.bandcamp.com
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