NAJAKOTIVA was formed in Warsaw’s Żoliborz district in the first half of the 1990s by teenagers with classical musical education. With roots in the hardcore punk scene, under the influence of their fascination with sounds bordering on acid rave and industrial avant-garde, they swapped distorted guitars for glitchy sounds from Amiga and Atari computers.
The phenomenon of NAJAKOTIVA was the addition of a cello and a violin to the line-up, creating unique sound together with computers and samplers. The band’s initial activity was based on musical and psychedelic spontaneous home sessions, during which subsequent albums were recorded. NAJAKOTIVA’s work, stemming from electro-industrial roots, was firmly rooted in the chaotic and threatening reality of the mid-90s and rave culture – acid sounds, breakbeats processed by mutiple effects, dark ambients and disturbing synth backgrounds met with repetitive loops played by the string section, reminiscent of minimalist film music in the style of Phillip Glass or dark folk from unspecified steppe areas of the globe, somewhere between Romania and Mongolia. In 1995, the band began to actively perform in Warsaw and its surroundings. Its base was the already legendary Tęcza cinema – theater.
NAJAKOTIVA’s live acts were multimedia performances, during which televisions were smashed with hammers, and at other times, a car was seen being cut apart with saws on stage. The band’s activities could be seen at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, but also in illegal squatter locations at underground rave parties. In the basements of the Warsaw Academy of Music, where the band’s musicians studied sound engineering.
NAJAKOTIVA recorded two albums that never saw the light of day… until 2025. After thirty years of activity (with breaks), on the occasion of the first ever release of NAJAKOTIVA’s archive recordings by Requiem Records on the double album 993/998, the band resumed its concert activity as a quartet – electronics, synthesizers, cello and live drums.
NAJAKOTIVA (PL)
