II
Hey & Katarzyna Nosowska

About:

Katarzyna Nosowska (30 August 1971)
Piotr Banach (5 March 1965)

There are two key players in the Polish rockband Hey. Based in Szczecin it is Banach fascination with bands like Deep Purple and Pink Floyd to start a band of his own. After being in and out of bands at the second half of the Eighties he created the band Dum Dum with Kasia Nosowska on bas. She previously was in a band called Szklane Pomarańcze and sang background vocals in albums by Pidżama Porno and IMTM In the autumn of 1991 the band won the qualifier for the French festival Le Printemps de Bourges and was the only team representing Poland. In 1992 they started recording for their debut album but somewhere halfway the band fell apart. Nosowska and Banach gathered a new team and changed the name into Hey. The first album ‘Fire’, released in 1993, followed the grunge-trend of those days and was an immediate succes selling 4 times platinum. In 1995 both band-leaders felt that the grunge line wasn’t were they wanted to go. After a short break, Hey issued the mini-album ‘Heledore’ which was an immediate style change into more electronic music and Katarzyna suddenly cut her hair short. The band also changed by singing primarly in Polish and from the album ‘?’ ‘List’ and ‘Prawda’ became hitsingles. Thus supporting the duo thinking they were on the right track. This turned out the wrong way with albums becoming more difficult and harder to sell. After two more album Universal ended their contract in 1999.

Meanwhile Katarzyna also become a mother (Nicholas was born in 1996) and was already busy with her own solo career that even matched the electronic course of Hey in experimental sense. This was probably sparked by her cooperation with experimental rock combo Voo Voo with she worked on their albums ‘Flota zjednoczonych sił’ (1997) and ‘Oov Oov’ (1998). Although her solo debut ‘Puk Puk’ still reached gold status the other albums had marginal succes. In 2001 she joins in the project ‘Yugoton’ which is a musical tribute to music from former Yugoslavia. For the album she covers the Idoli song ‘Retko te vidjam sa devojkama’ (translated in Polish ‘Rzadko widuję cię z dziewczętami’), the Film song ‘Zamisli život u ritmu muzike za ples’ and the Aerodrom composition ‘Obicna Ljubavna Pjesma’. Banach also started his own solo project after 1999 mainly focusing on reggae music with his combo Indios Bravos. In 2003 Hey suddely reappeared with Nosowska but without Banach and Paweł Krawczyk in his place. The band signed with Warner music and released one album before being dumped again due to the fact that new management in the US did not want local European bands. In 2005 the band switched to BMG and released ‘Echosystem’. An album that brought them back in the charts and again sold platinum. The band also did an MTV unplugged session with the new material. The new succes enabled Nosowska to record and release a new solo album on her own label. ‘UniSexBlues’ was a mixture of techno, hiphop, reggae and pop. In september 2008 gave a show at the Teatrze Muzycznym Roma under the title Pamiętajmy o Osieckiej. The show formed the blueprint for the album ‘Osiecka’. The album sold platinum and would be awarded with a Fryderyk. In 2009 she returns with Hey for the album ‘Miłość! Uwaga! Ratunku! Pomocy!’which again received a Fryderyk. In 2010 a remix edition of the album appeared with remixes by Andrzeja Smolika (Loco Star), Plastic and Mosqitoo under the title ‘Re-murped’. In 2011 Nosowska releases a solo album '8' and on the release the new Hey album is already announced. The 2012 'Do rycerzy, do szlachty, doo mieszczan' sounds very close to Nosowska's solo material in an accesible band version. Both share the same producer, Marcin Bors.

On the web:

- Hey's official website: http://hey.pl/
- Katarzyna's official website: http://nosowska.pl/

If you like this, you probably like... / european counterparts:

What do we think:

DB: Actually we took the wrong route with Kasia. Paul Royal first bought her entire solowork at the Empik in Warsaw and we were blown away by the inventive, experimental and daring music she made, then we found we encountered her voice before on albums by Voo voo and it was by then (back home) that we found out that Kasia was actually the lead singer of Hey of which we hadn't had any music. Maybe it symbolizes the somehow uncatchable artist she is. There are artists whose mission is to please the crowd...Kasia is not one of them. For listeners with an open mind.

PR: Nosowska is one of the most creative and influential alternative artists in Poland. She's grunge, electro, garage, rock and pop at the same time. During her career she never hesitated to experiment and cahnge her musical directions. She colaborated with many other Polish acts. Her albums do not offer any light pop tunes; be prepared for a 'difficult listening hour', but you will be rewarded with a great musical experience if you are prepared to let Kasia get under your skin...

Albums:

Solo:

♪♪♪♪ - Puk.puk - 1996

♪♪♪ - Milena - 1998

♪♪♪ - Sushi - 2000

♪♪♪ - UniSexBlues - 2007

Osiecka - 2008

♪♪♪♪- 8 - 2011

With Hey:

Fire - 1993

Ho! - 1994

Heledore - 1995

♪♪♪ - ? - 1995

♪♪♪- Karma - 1997

[sic!] - 2001

Music Music - 2003

Echosystem - 2005

MTV Unplugged - 2007

♪♪♪1/2 - Miłość! Uwaga! Ratunku! Pomocy! - 2009

♪♪♪♪ - Do rycerzy, do szlachty, doo mieszczan - 2012

------------------------------------------------------------------------
♪♪♪♪♪ = outstanding album, an absolute must-have
♪♪♪♪ = great album, highly recomended
♪♪♪ = nice album
♪♪ = be careful, requires listening before buying
♪ = best to be avoided