After several years of popularity of big beat music, which was the Polish version of rock and roll, the album “Test”, recorded by the band of the same name, presented a completely new musical sound – hard rock. The album contains eleven songs, ten of which he composed Dariusz Kozakiewicz. When he started working on this material, he was only 21 years old and his achievements included participating in the recording of an album “Blues” team Breakout.
The first side of the “Test” album includes the following songs: “Swim against the current”, “Inna jest noc”, “Testament”, “Zguba”, “W pogoni Dzień”. On side B: “When the flame inside us goes out”, “Dream about me”, “Matilda”, “Count on yourself”, “The way through a dream” and “Adventure without love”. Years later, the most famous song from this album is “Adventure without Love”.
“Although it was a pioneering album, it was created on the fly,” guitarist Dariusz Kozakiewicz, who supported the group in 1997-2021 (until the end of its activity), told PAP Perfect. “I learned to play blues, which I considered the basis, and music Jimi Hendrix. However, the time came when I started playing a little harder. It was called hard rock. Back then, we listened to a lot of albums by Western bands, mainly from Great Britain. This was our inspiration,” Kozakiewicz recalled.
The album “Test” was recorded on the so-called “hundred”, i.e. all members of the group played in the studio at the same time. It was a difficult task because the mistake of one of them ruined the efforts of the entire team. Today, when recording albums, this is an unheard of phenomenon. Currently, each instrument is recorded separately and only later, in the computer, the engineer combines all the sounds into one song. Older musicians claim that it was the recording of the “hundredth” that made the music real and had soul.
In a Polish Radio broadcast in January 2011, Wojciech Waglewski (Voo Voo) said: “While working with outstanding musicians, I realized that we all use pro tools and computer devices in the studio now. We edit everything, record one phrase, and then transcribe and tune it seventeen times. At some point I realized, that there is something disgusting about it. When playing a hundred, the fact that the musician makes a mistake, that the repetitions are different, that sometimes it is played unevenly, this is the humanistic part of pop music.
“We recorded the ‘Test’ album on Długa Street, in the Polskie Nagrania studio. We entered the studio with equipment and recorded the entire album on ‘100’. It was live and free music,” Kozakiewicz recalled.
“I remember that time and the Test band very fondly. It was an interesting period in my life. Although today I perform a different repertoire, at that time I was very interested in rock music,” he told PAP. Wojciech Gąssowski, the band’s vocalist. “The music on the ‘Test’ album was ahead of its time. The audience was probably not prepared for its reception, although there were always crowds at the concerts,” he added.
“We were unlucky when we recorded this album. The equipment of Polskie Nagrania was very outdated, three months later much more modern recording studio equipment was purchased. If we had recorded the album a few months later, it would certainly have been better,” Gąssowski recalled.
“There was a strange atmosphere in the recording studio. The people who recorded this material had nothing to do with this type of music. There were strange conversations and advice from them, e.g. one of the ladies sitting behind the console pointed out to Darek Kozakiewicz that his amplifier was broken , and he explained to her that this is how it was supposed to sound,” the singer remembered.
“I get great satisfaction when people come to me after my performances and mention the Test team. The few years we played in Test are embedded in the memory of our fans,” Gąssowski noted.
The Test band was founded at the beginning of 1972 by musicians from the former group ABC Andrzej Nebeski: Wojciech Gąssowski, Andrzej Mikołajczak, Zbigniew Karwacki, Aleksander Michalski. After a few months, only Gąssowski remained from the first team.
“We created a new line-up of the Test band and at the turn of 1972 and 1973 we started working on the album. I had the freedom to compose this material. I created everything, except for one number – ‘Adventure without love’ – which was composed by Andrzej Korzyński. The work lasted over a year, because at that time releasing albums was not as easy as it is today,” Kozakiewicz recalled. “After the ‘Test’ album was released, we played a lot of concerts with this program. The crowd went crazy and other guitarists took cues from our style. It was music that previously could only be heard from Western records,” he added.
The album “Test” was recorded by: Dariusz Kozakiewicz (guitar), Wojciech Gąssowski (singing), Tadeusz Kłoczewiak (bass guitar) i Henryk Tomala (drums). The album was received with great enthusiasm by the listeners, but the public media (press and radio) limited themselves to only minimal activities – noting that the album had been released, without reviewing it. The music that appeared on the album was contrary to the officially created image of youth culture in Poland.
“The most loyal members of the Test band are Dariusz Kozakiewicz and Wojciech Gąssowski. The style they have recently promoted is hard rock” – it was written in the “Na przełaj” magazine in December 1974, in a short press note titled “The first longplay of the Test band”.
“Test’s first longplay was recently released. This album is the best confirmation of the group’s musical development. Most of the songs are composed by the guitarist and musical director of the band – Dariusz Kozakiewicz. It is his solos that give the overall shape of such a characteristic sound. The ‘Test’ album, despite some reservations, “as, among other things, the singer’s diction is not always the best, enjoys great interest among music lovers,” wrote the “Panorama” magazine in June 1975.
“The vocalist of the Test band, Wojciech Gąssowski, a veteran of Polish pop music, founded the group basing its musical level on the excellent guitarist Kozakiewicz. His influence is most visible in the band’s repertoire” – wrote in “Gazeta Współczesna” in October 1975.
“We were planning to release another album, I had already completed all the material, but we were struggling to maintain the band’s composition. Musicians would come, we would rehearse together for a while, sometimes we would play a concert and then leave. It was a time when many people went to the West ‘for a living’. On next concerts or tours, I had to look for new musicians and prepare them to play in the band again. After some time, I was very tired of it. The work consisted mainly of patching up the band’s personnel, not creating new things,” Kozakiewicz explained.
Wojciech Gąssowski also mentioned plans to release a second album in an interview published in the “Na przełaj” magazine in September 1975: “Our first album ‘Test’ was probably a success. Perhaps we will record another album this year.”
“We played a lot of concerts, had tours with Hungarian bands, and also promoted the first steps Suflera booths and SBB – they played before us as support. Having constant problems with the band’s composition, I did not want to release a new album and after its release tell our fans that the group was disbanding. It would be unfair,” explains Kozakiewicz. “Around 1978, the Test band broke up,” he added.
In 1991, Test was reactivated for one concert. When asked if there was a chance for the band to exist longer or to release a second album for which the material was ready, Dariusz Kozakiewicz replied: “We had no proposals to release an album. As for the band, we were already at different stages, I didn’t want to play hard anymore rock, and Wojtek Gąssowski also developed a different style.
The album “Test” quickly fell into oblivion, overshadowed by subsequent musical achievements in Poland. At the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, numerous hard rock, punk, new wave and heavy metal bands began to form. Radio stations also very rarely played Test’s songs.
“For years, I haven’t heard any Test songs on the radio, even on stations playing mostly Polish rock music. Perhaps Gąssowski and I did not make sure that the band and its songs would not be forgotten. We focused on our own careers, forgetting about Test” – explained Kozakiewicz .
“In my over 50-year artistic career, I consider two albums to be the most important – ‘Blues’ by Breakout, recorded with Tadeusz Nalepa when I was almost 19 years old, and ‘Test'” – said Kozakiewicz. “On my latest album ‘Krokodyl’, released in 2021, there are two songs from the album ‘Test’: ‘Sail against the current’ and ‘Gdy giśni w nas’ flame’. We also play them at my band’s concerts,” the guitarist emphasized. “Many people from the 50+ group who come to my concerts remember the band Test. This is very nice,” he added.