You probably didn’t think you’d stumble upon a sample-wielding, Amon Tobin-loving, home studio genius among small-town Poland’s blue collar population. But that was before coming across Bielebny on Jamendo.

He says it himself: in Grabow Nad Prosna, somewhere in central Poland, “nothing ever happens. It’s a very small, sleepy town.” Nevertheless, it hosts Lukasz Biel, a young  workman who worships Brazilian samplemaster Amon Tobin and whose primary concern after he got back home from military service two years ago was to teach himself how to use mixing and sampling software. “Amon Tobin is my mentor. He can take any sounds from his surroundings, mix them and make brilliant music out of them. And I’ve found another mentor on Jamendo, Tryad, who can do the same thing. I wish I could be as good as them.”

Well at 27 years old, he’s already pretty good. His three albums under the name Bielebny, all published on Jamendo, are a clever mix of hip-hop, jazz and other genres, showing great mastery of sound creation and treatment. “Still, he insists, I’m an amateur.”

Originally, Lukasz, who went to art school in Wroclaw, imagined himself going into painting. “But I found in music a better way to express my feelings.” And today, through his music, he feels like he is a part of “a new age, the age of sampling”, unfortunately still stymied by questions of copyright that make it “a black sheep in music genres.” We feel your pain Lukasz. It’s high time all that creativity was set free.

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