The
festival began on Wednesday the 13th with two improvisation groups
made up of local musicians. This evening was organised in part
by Marek Choloniewski, who played electronics in one of the two
formations. Choloniewski has been employed since the mid-70s at
the Krakow Academy of Music, in the Electro acoustic Music Studio.
He's also the founder of the Krakow's "Audio Art Festival", which
has been going to more than 15 years...
On Thursday
the 14th the evening began in Klub Re's ancient cellar... About
150 people filed in, an amazing number when one considers that
the evening was filled with artists that aren't well known at
all in Poland... HHTP from Belarus got behind his laptop and delivered
a concert that combined slowly transforming visual images and
subtle and quiet shifts in microsound... After that, Kotra got
on stage. One of the Ukraine artists represented by Nexsound,
he performed an intense concert, creating ultra high frequencies,
blasts of noise, and particles of rough electronics. He built
up strange rhythms driven by a weird inner drive... Not chaotic
or random at all, but structured. You would need earplugs for
this stuff if it went on too long, but it didn't. Kotra knew exactly
when to pull the plug, delivering an intense set that went for
about 20 minutes. The crowd responded with very enthusiastic applause.
Zenial - electronic outsider of Poland, weird dude, maker of compilations
of asian electronic music - was asked a while ago to work on a
collaboration with Andriey Kiritchenko, the founder of Nexsound
Records in Ukraine, and a legend of the Ukrainian electronic/experimental
scene. Hunched over his laptop with a baseball cap on his head,
Zenail worked on dark foreboding backgrounds, while Kiritchenko
got to work with the contact mikes, using an array of instruments
to create sounds. The piece was alive, it was breathing, it felt
like a mass. Heavy, dark, strangely beautiful sounds. Built up
and released the audience. The evening finished with Kiritchenko
doing a solo set, again incorporating layered, atmospheric digital
backgrounds. The backgrounds sounded like they were partially
made up out of field recordings. He again used strange instruments
and contact mikes to create acoustic sounds, instruments such
as plastic bags, and ripped newspapers, and once again the set
was affecting and moving... and everyone was rapt. The fact that
the audience bought more than 20 nexsound compact discs after
the performances is a testament to how good it was... (And that
was despite the fact that Nexsound were also giving away beautifully
packaged samplers for free!!!) You can find stuff out about nexsound
and even download mp3 albums at www.nexsound.org...
Night number
three, Friday, began with a Polish artist from Gdansk named Arszyn.
He's a member of a band called 'Ludzie.' Like Kiritchenko, he
delivered an electro acoustic performance. It began with a very
quiet, high-pitched sound that lasted for a very long time, and
promised an extremely minimal set. For a long time he created
the acoustic sounds by pushing small objects around, near mikes...
Quiet, minimal, delicate... The main East-West collaboration was
presented next, with Joseph Suchy from Berlin on guitar and Wojtek
Kosma on laptop. Kosma played cut up and rearranged fragments
of traditional Polish folk music, arranged into patterns. Suchy
played his trademark guitar over the top, arranged in abstract
pieces. Meanwhile, on the wall, images of Polish villages and
roads were projected, which kept breaking down into digital fragments
and blocks of colours. It was a performance that was very interesting,
in that it was mining Polish folklore in this digital manner.
Hopefully this piece will also be performed in Germany. Performer
number three was Mark Weiser, of Rehenzentrum, and also one of
the curators of Club Transmediale in Berlin. He was performing
a solo set - which meant without the visual side of Rehenzentrum,
usually provide by Lillevan. Armed with his laptop, Mark started
out in a very chaotic manner. Sounds blurred into one another,
from which eventually emerged the almost triumphant pounding of
a piano. Periods of cinematic ambience, the noise of a car rushing
past. Bleak music, with a hugely emotional core. Strange how it
can be easy to listen to, especially once the minimal techno beats
get going, yet still so complicated and full of tensions. Intelligent,
but never boring, and at times even danceable. It kept shifting
between moods and places. The evening ended with Alexei Borisov
doing a DJ set. A highly eclectic bunch of pieces were played,
offering a retrospective of russian electronic music. Wasn't just
a standard DJ set, as Alexei played with the sound now and then,
blasting it out with noise. Saturday night was the big club night.
Jacek Sienkiewicz played, probably the best known Polish producer
of danceable intelligent electronic music - certainly in the west
of Europe. He got everyone up and dancing. He was followed by
Thomas Brinkmann, the star of evening. Brinkman plays minimal
techno, and is famous for hand-carving loops into old vinyl with
knives. Perfectly constructed, repetitive rhythmic constructions
which he would leave going for long periods... Driven by a steady
pulse of noise, clanks and noises kicking in, it had a packed
room up and dancing. Bits of dialogue would rise up, repeat themselves
in loops. He kept pulling you into a trance like state, then throwing
you out of it, all the while poised behind his laptop smoking
one rolled cigarette after another. After that Marcin Czubala
played, one of the main makers of ambitious techno in Poland.
In a second room several Krakow DJs played more subdued stuff,
so as not to encourage the police to come and tell everyone to
keep quiet... (People live above the bar.) Great night, with a
few hundred people dancing. Finished after 5am...
On Sunday
arvo, a few people managed to drag themselves from the beds to
go to a lecture held at the Goethe Institute. This was delivered
by Susanna Niedermayr, a specialist in eastern electronic music.
She's the author of the book 'In The East: New Musical Territories
In Europe', and was one of the main people responsible for the
'Go East!' section of Berlin's Club Transmediale. She gave a lecture
on the subject that looked at the question of why there are so
few women involved in making electronic music in Central and East
Europe... Strangely enough, after that lecture the only woman
of the festival took to the stage in RE. This was the Ukrainian
Nexsound artist Zavoloka. She played a blend of digital noises
and melodies, often shifting, sometimes moving into idm like drums.
After her, it was time for Alexei Borisov. Alexei is a a major
figure in the history of Russian underground music. Based in Moscow,
he began by playing in Russia's first new wave band in the 1980s.
He is also the co-founder of the Russian-Finnish label N&B Research
Digest. Currently involved in many projects, he performed his
distinctive and unique solo set for Unsound. Referencing surrealism
and classical futurism, alexei built up layers of sound that moved
from being soft to ear-piercingly loud. Fragments of conversations
in various languages rose to the surface, as did other field recordings.
Beats sometimes emerged, pulsating. Alexei used a small mike to
speak into, his voice appearing to speak Russian at moments, but
actually in no real language... The voice itself was also distorted
and damaged... Alexei describes himself as a historian rather
than a musician, because of the way he builds something from the
pieces and emotions of everyday life. Alexei's label can be found
at http://www.nbresearchdigest.com/...
The last scheduled set for Unsound was by Moglass, a Ukrainian
(and once again Nexsound) three-piece which incorporate electric
guitar, bass guitar and electronics. Their live performance was
very different from the only CD of theirs I have heard. While
the CD is an almost ambient work, made up of drones and subdued
guitar, Moglass playing something that resembled a 1970s freaked
out improvisation session. This had less to do with the bass player,
who didn't play too many notes, and even less to do with the electronic
side of things. It was rather the guitarist who led the show,
making wild noises with his mouth and general treating his guitar
as a percussive instrument, or a way of making sounds. At the
end all the artists of the evening got together to jam. HHTP also
reappeared to plug in his laptop once more. The sonic sounds lay
in a rather fragile arrangement beneath the Moglass's guitarist.
After that,
several bottles of good Polish vodka were consumed, to celebrate.
All in all, the festival was a success, with a great range of
music, and hundreds of people attending. Unsound 03 Krakow is
already in preparation, again in co-operation with the Goethe
Institute. |
