UN TUNE: CTM and Unsound
The Berlin-based CTM festival and the Krakow-based Unsound, two very particular European music festivals, are to strengthen their cooperation with a series of concerts by Piotr Kurek and We Will Fail at CTM – Un Tune which will take place in 2015.
CTM and Unsound have actually been working together for years, – said Mat Schulz, director of the Krakow Unsound festival, in a conversation with Culture.pl, – One of our common goals is the promotion of new artists.
There are hundreds of music festivals in Europe. What makes CTM and Unsound stand out is their wide-ranging interdisciplinary programmes. Their choice of artists goes far beyond mainstream contemporary music. Apart from going to concerts and parties, the audiences of both festivals can take active part in numerous debates (which sometimes get more attention than the music), they can attend film screenings, exhibitions and discover interdisciplinary installations. There is mostly contemporary music on the programme of both festivals but focus is also drawn to the history of music, electronic music in particular and the cultural, philosophical and social context in which it thrives.
We worked together for the first time in 2005 – explains Schulz – we had an exchange of artists and we created a joint project [Friendship, thanks to which Polish and German musicians performed side by side, among them were Wojciech Kucharczyk and Felix Kubin, Deuce and Guenter Reznicek – editor's note]. CTM and Unsound also co-founded ICAS and ECAS (International and European Cities of Advanced Sound), a network of festivals with similar profiles from different places around the globe. It aims to develop new ideas and further cooperation. There are many other joint projects worth mentioning: the performance of Solaris by Sinfonietta Cracovia in Berlin, the showcases of PAN record label in 2012 and Janus in 2014 at Unsound, both curated by CTM.
This year's CTM will host an array of Unsound-esque elements. Although the CTM programme has not yet been published, among the performing artists are Piotr Kurek and Aleksandra Grünholz as We Will Fail.
Piotr Kurek
Born in Biłgoraj and now living in Warsaw, Piotr Kurek is a sound artist, and he's one of those artists that are hard to pigeonhole. In the early 21st century he played in Ślepce, a brutal electronic band with a penchant for humour; he then released a solo album and made music for theatre. In 2012 he released the album Edena (with the Polish record label Sangoplasmo that specialises in cassettes and on vinyl with the Italian label Black Sweat Records), in which he created looping, rhythmical and charming pieces of music with a structured story and the help of key instruments. He co-operates, improvises, records and plays concerts with a variety of artists, among others Hubert Zemler (Piętnastka), Sylvia Monnier (Suavages Figures), Francesco De Gallem (Abrada), Paweł Szpura and Łukasz Rychlicki. He is currently working on a house music project called Heroiny, the draft version of which he presented at Unsound. The piece makes use of a drum machine and an acoustic guitar.
We Will Fail
This project is about the pleasure of searching. It's a strange mix of outdoor recordings, samples from tapes, noises, synthesisers and an electronic drum that combine in a unity of music that borders on techno. The face of the project is Aleksandra Grünholz – a graphic designer by education and a music lover by passion. She collaborates with several artists and musicians, and is part of the OKO artistic group and the duet Tirips (with Piotr Tkacz). In 2014 she brought out two albums with Monotype Records: VERSTÖRUNG (CD) and VERSTÖRUNG 2.0 (LP).
This year's CTM festival, themed UN TUNE, will take place between January 23rd and February 1st in Berlin. The idea behind the festival is the influence of sound waves, reverberations and music on the human body. Among the performing artists are: Craig Leon, Lucio Capece, Alec Empire with visualisations by Zana Lyonsa, Electric Wizard and Carter Tutti Void. And the line-up will continue to evolve. More on Berlin's CTM.
Author: Filip Lech, translator: MJ 07/12/2014