Ziemia Mindel Würm
From Unearthing The Music
Ziemia Mindel Würm was a Polish band active between 1990 and 1992, mainly in Gdańsk.
The highly ritualised and many hours-long actions of the duo formed by Marek Rogulski and Piotr Wyrzykowski were designed to be a liberation from civilising codes and habits. Combing the names of geological time periods (Mindel and Würm), the group’s name was supposed to evoke an archaic context. The duo searched for the hidden forces of the unconscious, channelling shamanistic rituals and the magical practices of primordial cultures, using their codes to challenge the urban reality of the early 1990s. Their music, played during the performances, being an amalgamation of industrial noise and primitivistic construction, reflected a calculated fusion of both elements. Ziemia Mindel Würm was active between 1990 and 1992, mainly in Gdańsk. Their actions often took place on the Granary Island with titles that were somehow connected to the primordial energetic levels of the human mind. Ziemia Mindel Würm also performed music which was later used in their performances. The instrumentation consisted of prepared guitars and drums (Rogulski) and a bass guitar (Wyrzykowski). Both musicians used electronic sound converters and modulators. Eventually the duo split, and its members formed new, separate groups: Rogulski formed Tysiąc Najjaśniejszych Słońc, and Wyrzykowski formed Venom Underground.
Text previously published in: Notes from the Underground, ed. David Crowley and Daniel Muzyczuk, Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź, Walther Koenig, 2016.
Video
Video recorded at the Oliwa forests, 1990