(Cyber Groove/Wax Orchard/KJSawka.com - Sea/NYC)
//Piece of Press
KJ SAWKA - GIVE THIS CYBORG SOME STICKS
by Katie Sauro, Seattle Sound
Imagine you’re at a loft party. Hour after hour, throbbing jungle beats batter you from all sides, and rapid drum palpitations assail you with suffocating fervor. You look up and, with nary a deejay or drum machine in sight, realize that all that noise pours forth from one man – a solitary drummer named KJ Sawka, pounding away almost as quickly and powerfully as human nature allows.
Using only a half-acoustic, half-electronic drum set and a laptop pre-programmed with keyboard and bass lines, drum n’ bass guru KJ Sawka produces dynamically enthralling electronica with an all-but-unmatched aggression. Sawka’s debut LP, *Synchronized Decompression (released last year on local imprint Wax Orchard) catalogues this explosive energy, but the album’s 13 tracks can hardly contain it. As Sawka himself explains, his immutable force derives from a committed exploit of live drums.
“Even when a person has a live keyboard there, live drums just really take it to that next level of intensity,â€
