Stukot is the experimental solo project of Warsaw, Poland musician Szymon Witecki. Their latest release “Reactions” is made up of two tracks “Reactions 1” and “Reactions 2” and everything is essentially centered around Witecki’s drum kit with an array of synth tones accompanying it.
I caught up with Witecki to talk about his early musical influences, how he started playing instruments and how approaches creating and recording his music.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Szymon-It’s hard to call just a few and not make the answer really long but I’ll try to keep it as short as possible. My first musical memories are connected with my Dad’s CD collection – he played a lot of Bill Evans, Stan Getz and his favorite rock band – Slade, so these are the first things that I heard as a kid. My first favorite band as a teenager was The Offspring, later lots of hard rock stuff such as AC/DC or Metallica, after that I got into more alternative rock like QOTSA, The Twilight Singers, Mark Lanegan (btw. still one of my favorite musicians). In my early twenties I’ve discovered jazz – I listened to a lots of bebop stuff like Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, Thelonius Monk, then I digged into free jazz and realized that it’s still alive with artists like Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson or Peter Brotzmann, who by the way were often playing concerts in my city, usually at still operating today, now already legendary club Pardon to Tu. I can go on and on with this list so let me end with that – if I had to pick one favorite artist that would be John Coltrane as he covered so many styles, musical territories in his career that it’s unbelievable and I feel there is still so much more for me to discover in his music.
CMM-When did you all first start playing music and creating your own songs?
Szymon-As I’ve just searched my archives first solo things were recorded in 2014 – at that time it was solo drumming, inspired by drummers like Tim Daisy and Paal Nilssen-Love – unbelievably great musicians so I tended not to compare my stuff to their works. Then after few Stukot albums that were played just on drums I tried to run the signal from one of the microphones through stompbox delay pedals (you can hear that on album “Lament” from 2020). Then I’ve changed the concept and added the mini electric piano, run it’s signal through reverb and delay effects, and keep on trying to play on both instruments – drums and mini-piano – simultaneously.
CMM-You recently released a new record called “Reactions”. What was the writing and recording process like? Any particular gear and instruments you used during the recording sessions that helped inspire you?
Szymon-My standard creation process involves hours of jamming, recording ideas and then putting them together. This process is certainly not the fastest but it as I don’t have musical education, this is the most natural way for me and allows me to be 100% confident in the material – the idea is that if I have been playing some themes for two years and still can’t get enough of them, they should be good enough to record and share. When I felt ready in December 2024 I recorded it in my friend’s Kuba Korzeniowski studio “Zamiostudio”. He created great, inspiring environment there and helped it sound as good as it was possible, he also mixed and mastered the album.
When it comes to the gear I tend to use as little as possible, try to avoid buying new things and get the maximum from what I already have. So I use a standard drumkit in bop sizes, simple setup of hi-hat/crash/ride cymbals and Yamaha Reface CP mini-piano synth with EHX reverb and delay stomp box pedals. I place the pedalboard with the mini-piano and effects on the snare stand next to the hi-hat so I can play it with my left hand. Actually you can see my setup on the “Reactions” cover that is a photo from the recording session.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director who would it be and what would the film be about?
Szymon-I’m not a huge movie fan, and probably this answer will be quite obvious, but David Lynch is very important artist for me – one of the reasons I gained enough self-confidence to record and publish first Stukot albums was seeing an exhibition of his works in a city of Torun, Poland in 2017. As he passed away few weeks ago and we are talking about dream-scenario that will not happen anyway I would love to see his movie in the style of old western – with or without my music that would be pure gold.
CMM-What do you have coming up next? Any new recordings or shows?
Szymon-A Few days after “Reactions” was launched I played a gig with my friend’s Mateusz band IHIH (I Hate It Here) – really cool improvised guitar-duo stuff – you should definitely check them out here. I’m not good at planning anything when it comes to Stukot but I already have some ideas for the new music and I hope to play some more live events this year.
