The idea for Kamyki started in reaction. “We recorded one album, played a few shows, and then spent a year and a half mostly congratulating ourselves and talking about old rifles,” says Kacper Burda. “I wanted to move forward.” That itch became a decision. He left the band and took everything into his own hands.
What followed was Sleepy Cities (2021), a slow-burning debut full of post-rock patience and dreamlike atmosphere. Then came Coal Rock (2022), heavier, rougher, almost droning with a kind of Sabbath-like descent into grit.
Shortcuts, the 2025 release, shifts once again. This time it’s Berlin-school synths, ambient structures, textures pulled from imaginary films. It sounds, at moments, like the score to Blade Runner. At others, like a grim soundtrack to a funeral. And sometimes it echoes the cold pulse of 1980s post-punk. It’s not a cohesive narrative. It’s a trip.
From the start, Kamyki has been about movement. Not in terms of promotion or reach—Burda lives far from any major city, and the solitude is part of the point—but in sound. “Each album should be different,” he says. “And I think you can hear that.” The evolution isn’t planned out as a linear progression, more like a series of necessary departures.
With Shortcuts, the process leaned even more into the visual and the abstract. “I was inspired by the Berlin school of electronic music and ambient, and tried to merge that with post-prog-rock just to see what would come of it,” he explains.
He also points to film and video game scores—not for melody or theme, but for structure and atmosphere. Shortcuts doesn’t chase hooks. It builds space.
There’s a tradeoff to doing it alone. “It’s a huge privilege—I get to set the direction and don’t have to fight over how a part should sound.” But that control comes at a price.
Without bandmates or outside input, there’s no immediate feedback loop. “Sometimes you drift into a theme that feels exciting at first, but when you come back to it later, it just doesn’t hold up.”
Despite the occasional isolation, there’s a lingering temptation to turn Kamyki into a full band. “Of course it’s tempting. The problem is I live far from any bigger cities, where it’d be easier to find musicians.” Still, he’s exploring possibilities. No promises, he adds—but something might come of it.
Until then, Kamyki remains a one-person operation. Guitars, synths, drum programming, production, mixing, mastering, even the graphic design—it’s all Burda. That singular control seeps into the music itself. There are no compromises, no smoothing-over of textures to make the songs more palatable.
It’s not music looking to please. It’s music trying to build a world. One that shifts shape depending on who’s listening and when. Sometimes the world looks like a crumbling city under neon rain. Sometimes it’s a quiet procession through heat and mourning. Either way, you’re inside it. No shortcuts.
