Audiences who love live music often have to deal with multiple stimuli distracting their attention. While hearing the musicians, fans take snapshots and see the flash from the cameras of photographers squeezing through the crowd. The organisers of Kraków’s Unsound Festival decided to remedy this. Mat Schulz, the artistic director, explains:
We want to get the audience to focus on living the moment and respecting the experiences of those around. We would like to question the tendency of the public to post photos and videos of the performances on Internet platforms like social networks and streaming feeds. This effort causes a short-term disruption, hindering the ability for the image to be continuous and this practise has become a main tool of modern communication. We are not going to enforce this rule through the use of security personnel, but we hope that it will turn into a grass-roots effort and inspire action by the festival's community. If someone sees another who is disregarding the rule of no pictures or videos – we ask you to ask them to stop.
Each edition of Unsound features special projects that often only occur once. This year’s event will be documented by a team of discreet photographers employed by the festival. The audio will be recorded and archived on the NTS Radio database. Interested parties may go to the website of the independent Internet radio channel based in the U.K and listen to the performances.
Poland Represented
Many Polish groups will appear at this year’s festival. The festival will feature the world premier Catalogue des arbres / Catalogue of Trees, contemporary music and improvisation between Kwartludium, a quartet of violin, clarinet, percussion and piano, and Jacaszk, known for ambient music. The musicians were inspired by nature and Messiaen's famous piece Catalogue d’Oiseaux / Catalogue of Birds, in which the composer represented birdsong in musical language.
The Kwadrofonik percussion-piano quartet will also perform. Polish experimental-music veterans Robert Piotrowicz and Anna Zaradny will play, as will the scene's rising stars Stara Rzeka / Old River and Stefan Wesołowski.
Foreign artists are scheduled to share the stage with Polish groups. The musicians from the well-respected Kraków-based orchestra Sinfonietta Cracovia will be accompanied by the Australian musician Oren Ambarch, and the Kraków-based girls' choir will support Julianna Barwick in her material from Iceland.
Foreign Stars
Unsound Festival 2013 brings audiences a fantastic cast of performers from around the world. Andy Stott will meet with Demdike Stare in a performance of their darkly penetrating, heavy-style club music. Electronics innovator Charlemagne Palestine and electric-guitar maven Rhys Chatham will also appear in a show together. Underground Resistance is also listed on the roster and will give audiences a taste of the revolutionary collectives in the Detroit techno sphere. Unsound has also invited the great DJ Q and DJ Richard to perform, and will feature the harsh sounds of Powell.
The festival's early editions had focused on a line-up for Polish audiences, but it now attracts experimental-music lovers from around the world. Unsound also hosts important panel discussions; last year's being organised by the influential U.K.magazine The Wire, along with Glissando, the Polish magazine dedicated to contemporary music, and one of the important club-music sites, Resident Advisor. The festival also organises annual foreign editions, with an acclaimed track record in London, New York City, Tbilisi (Georgia), Adelaide, Minsk (Belarus), Kiev (Ukraine), Prague and Bratislava (Slovakia).
Translation: SMG 02/09/2013