With Co.LeGa’s “Digitally Modified,” a song built from the same technologies and advancements that it warns us about, dropping tomorrow, it felt like the perfect time to sit down with Lechosław Gawroński and find out about the journey that got him to where we find him today and where it all goes next.
Before we talk about “Digitally Modified”, can you tell us what Co.LeGa is, where the project began, and the path you took to find your way to it?
I should maybe start by saying that Co.LeGa doesn’t feel like a straight solo project to me. Of course, there is me at the center of it – writing, shaping the ideas and pushing it forward – but it works better in my head as an open structure, almost like a small world that other people can enter.
Music started quite early for me, before I understood anything about scenes or styles. As a child, I listened to a lot of Chopin, and the first piece that really got under my skin was his “Funeral March”. I know, it sounds dramatic, but to me it was just beautiful. Believe it or not, I didn’t really hear it as “sad music”.
I always liked minor keys. For some reason, they put me in a better mood. They somehow made everything feel more honest. Later, it became more about making songs that could hold all these different things. Music, images, dark humor, religion, technology, control, the universe – somehow it all gets in there. Not always in a planned way. Sometimes you only understand afterward what the song was really about.
So the path to Co.LeGa wasn’t very straight. It was more like collecting fragments for years, and finally finding a name and a form that could hold those elements together.
“Digitally Modified” is the single about to drop from your current project, Co.LeGa. Can you describe its sound and what you are trying to say with it?
“Digitally Modified” is a rhythm-driven track, quite dark in sound, although for me, there is still something strangely optimistic in it. It has industrial textures, a strong moving bassline, post-punk-style vocals, and then this more rave-like, electro-punk moment in the middle, where it opens up a bit.
Lyrically, I think people can read it in different ways. It could be about a toxic relationship, where one person knows exactly how to make the other person dependent on them. But for me, it also connects to the world we live in now. So much of modern life works almost like a drug-dealing system: first, you get the sample, then you get addicted, and then the “pro features” are paid extra, as a monthly subscription.
More and more of our lives arrive already configured for us – by technology, media, subscriptions, algorithms, belief systems, and all these invisible forms of control. You are constantly being told what to watch, what to feel, what to buy, what to want, and even how to be happy.
And the strange thing is that a lot of this is sold to us as convenience. Everything becomes easier, but somehow you have less and less control. Even your own files are not really yours anymore – they live somewhere in the so-called cloud. Everything is suggested, measured, analyzed, and optimized.
So the song is not really a lecture or a manifesto. It is more of a feeling. The feeling that something has entered the room, something is changing us, and we are all politely pretending not to notice.
And would you say it is typical of the music you are making through Co.LeGa, or is there no actual signature sound, are things too eclectic for that?
I don’t think the signature of Co.LeGa is one specific sound. I hope not, anyway. For me, music is a bit like love. It sounds ridiculous, but maybe there is only one music, and maybe the same love all the time – it just changes configuration.
I try to make every song its own little being. One track can be more electronic, another one more cinematic, another one more strange or more direct. For example, “Abstract”, the project I worked on with Michal Urbaniak – someone who really needs no introduction in the jazz world – was very much a trip-hop record. And then the next single, “Humans”, went almost completely into electro-punk. On paper, that looks like a big change, but for me, it is still the same music.
So I don’t want to decide too early what Co.LeGa is allowed to sound like. I like too many things, and being fully independent gives me the comfort of not having to ask permission for a style.
But yes, there probably is a signature atmosphere. A certain darkness, tension, melody, and this feeling that something is slightly wrong underneath the surface. Even when the song is catchy, I like it when there is something unstable inside it. That’s usually where the song starts to feel alive.
Who would you say are your influences, who, musically and otherwise, have guided you or made you look at the world differently?
Musically, there are a few obvious names I could mention: Thom Yorke, Martin Gore, Massive Attack, Portishead, The Prodigy, Björk, The Knife, Nirvana, Chopin, Snoop Dogg, Billie Eilish, Coco Rosie … I could go on. But I don’t really think influence works only in the sense of “this sounds like that”. Sometimes a strange little story can stay with you much longer than a song.
Recently, I saw this documentary about a boy who had somehow made friends with a grasshopper. He took it everywhere with him – in the car, to the sea, even swimming with it sitting on his head. It sounds completely absurd, but it was amazing.
I’ve also found some Aboriginal ways of thinking about land, time, community, and connection incredibly moving. Things like that impress me as much as music, sometimes more. Because music is really only a reflection of what is happening inside us. The sound comes later. First, there is this strange movement in the head, or in the heart, or wherever these things begin.
And then you read about technology, religion, power, control, all these systems we build around ourselves, and then suddenly you remember there are something like 100 to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way alone, and most of them probably have planets. Suddenly, everything feels ridiculous. I like that feeling. And maybe that is quite close to what I’m trying to do with Co.LeGa.
It is easy to see a connection with the early days of synth and digital music, that post-punk melting pot of the early eighties, and there is a real resurgence of music with such flavors at the moment. Does it feel like you are part of a scene, or do you see yourself plowing your own furrow, as the saying goes?
I don’t really feel part of a scene, but I understand the connection. That early synth and post-punk period is interesting because it still feels “dangerous” in a way. People were using machines, but the music often sounded more human than a lot of very polished music now. A lot of it was still played on real instruments and recorded to tape. Just listen to Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” – it is a little awkward in places, almost clumsy, but that is exactly the charm.
I sometimes wonder how that kind of rawness would survive now, in a world where everything is judged. I’m not sure someone like Simon Cowell would know what to do with it.
But coming back to the question, maybe that is why those sounds keep returning. They were about people trying to work out what the future felt like before the future had fully arrived. I hope it makes sense.
With Co.LeGa, I’m not trying to recreate that period. I’m more interested in the same kind of question. If something comes out sounding connected to that world, then great. But there are also many elements that are completely different, things that didn’t really exist in that form then – like the more rave-like pressure in the middle section, or the almost euro-disco / electro feel of the snares.
Everyone copies something. The important thing is to do it badly enough!
Is this a project designed to be played live, or do you see it as more studio-driven?
At the moment, Co.LeGa lives more in the studio than on stage. It starts with small pieces: a rhythm, a vocal idea, a strange sound, an image, sometimes just a mood that doesn’t want to go away. Then it becomes a song, then a visual world around the song. So,o for now,w the project is very much built around production, recording, visuals, and the atmosphere of each release.
I don’t see live as impossible at all. I just don’t think it has to be the classic band-on-stage situation. With Co.LeGa, live could be something else – a DJ set, a visual performance, something more cinematic, or something created with the right collaborators.
Because the project is quite open as a structure, live could become another part of that collective side. But I would only want to do it if it really belonged to the world of Co.LeGa. I don’t want to force it just because artists are supposed to play live.
The subject of “Digitally Modified” cleverly reflects the music that drives it. What is your vision of the rise of digital technology, AI, and the internet in general? Are they good or bad, or is their outcome totally down to how individuals use them?
I’ll take that as a compliment, that the idea of the song is somehow built into the sound itself – so thank you, I really appreciate that. I don’t think technology, including AI, is simply good or bad. Humans will always keep inventing things. That’s what we do. The only question is whether, at some point, we invent ourselves right to the edge of the cliff. People were terrified when the world moved from horses to cars… AI can be useful, fascinating, even inspiring.
Roger Penrose, who is one of my favorite thinkers, argues that the human mind is not just an algorithm and that it can’t be fully simulated by a classical computer. I think I feel something similar.
AI is incredible when the goal is clear – business, systems, obvious tasks, predictable outcomes. But when something comes from outside the algorithm, something irrational, emotional, broken, funny, beautiful, or simply strange, that’s where the human mind still wins.
If we talk about the kind of creation I care about most – something irrational, funny, strange, human – I don’t think AI can really replace that. And art needs a story. Without a story, without some human risk or real need behind it, it becomes much less exciting.
I’m actually quite optimistic in many ways. But I don’t like systems that pretend to help you while quietly making you dependent on them. The subscription model is a good example: first, they give you something for free, then once you need it, they start charging for everything. And the harder it is to leave, the worse they can treat you.
That’s probably what “Digitally Modified” is really suspicious of, not technology itself, but the invisible control around it.
And finally, what does the future hold for you both musically and perhaps in a broader sense?
Musically, there is already a lot prepared. We have seven singles ready, and the plan is to release them one after another, with each one opening a slightly different side of the project.
I want every release to have its own visual identity, not just a cover and a post saying “new single out now”. The visual side is becoming more and more important to the project. For one of the next singles, I’m already working with artists on that side, and it makes the whole thing feel much more alive.
In a broader sense, I’d like Co.LeGa to become a place where different people can enter the project when it makes sense: vocalists, producers, visual artists, filmmakers, whoever understands the atmosphere.
I’m interested in building something that keeps changing, but still feels like it belongs to the same strange world.
