Bringing Out the Gold: A Conversation with Philip Sherburne

sherburne-2-copy.jpg, default, Philip Sherburne. Photo courtesy of the author.

Philip Sherburne’s flight to Kraków was diverted to Katowice on his very first trip. Nearly 20 years and countless Unsound editions later, he keeps coming back. The veteran music journalist talks Polish experimentalism, a vanishing psychogeography, and surviving three decades on the beat.

Philip Sherburne, Pitchfork’s editor, has written about music for The Wire, Resident Advisor and The New York Times, and contributed a chapter to the seminal anthology Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, edited by Christopher Cox and Daniel Warner. A regular at the Unsound Festival since a fogged-in flight re-routed him to Katowice nearly two decades ago, he reflects on Kraków’s shifting geography, Poland’s independent experimental scene, and how he still finds music worth writing about after almost 30 years in the field.

Filip Lech: Do you remember your first encounter with Polish or Eastern European culture?

Philip Sherburne: I went to Prague in 1994. The Czech Republic [now Czechia] counts as Central or Eastern European, I assume? So that was my first encounter. I had been backpacking in Greece and Turkey with my college girlfriend, and we stopped in Prague for a week at the end of that three-month trip.

FL: That was during the Yugoslav Wars. I guess a lot of Westerners were still pretty wary of Eastern Europe back then.

Philip: I just remember it was about five years after the Berlin Wall came down. There were already tourists there; it had begun developing. What I remember very clearly was that they were polishing all the blackened monuments along the river to bring out the gold again.

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Prague, 1994, photo from Philip Sherburne's archive.

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I also remember an English-language bookstore where I discovered Little Blue Nothing (Malé modré nic) by The Havels – Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi. It was an ambient CD from the early 90s playing in the store, and I bought it and loved it. It featured cello and ambient music. For years, I felt like I was the only person who knew about it. Then I discovered they had a cult fan base, and a few years ago, Melody as Truth re-released a bunch of their work.

FL: You’re from Portland, which has a large Polish community. In fact, the first Polish festival in the western United States was organised there. Unsurprisingly, it’s just called The Polish Festival.

PS: In Portland? I didn’t know that.

FL: I didn't know it either until I was doing research for this interview… What were your previous thoughts about this region of Europe? Did you have any specific associations?

PS: I don’t think I had many associations. In university, I read a lot of Milan Kundera, so when I went to Prague, that was probably what was on my mind.

I also read some Jerzy Kosiński when I was younger. But I wouldn’t say I had a strong impression of the region.

FL: And after that, you ended up at Unsound in Kraków, where you’re basically a regular now.

PS: At the time, I didn't know anything about Kraków. The Balice airport was fogged in, so my flight was diverted to Katowice. My phone had died – this was way before smartphones – and there was nobody there to meet me. I just decided to get a room for the night, plug in my phone, and text Gosia Płysa [Unsound’s curator and executive director] that I’d see her in the morning.

When I finally got to Kraków, I went to the Rynek, the Main Square, and found a hotel. It had snowed overnight, and when I woke up, everything was covered in snow. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen snow in Kraków in 19 years, and it was magical.

Unsound itself also blew my mind. In those days, almost everything took place in cramped basements or at Klub RE. It had such a different feel. I remember seeing the Austrian group Fuckhead, an early Mego artist, in one of those spots – either Pauza or RE. They played what I recall as a kind of electronic speed metal, and had all kinds of weird props. At one point they were all half naked, slathered in liquid soap, and covered in feathers. It was very intense, smoky, and claustrophobic. You’d think, ‘If something happened, how would all these people get out?’.

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FL: After 19 years, how would you describe our music scene?

PS: Independent. You have to do it yourself because you're disconnected from the centralized industry, unlike American, English, German, or maybe Swedish artists. Spain is somewhat similar to Poland.

I’ve always been struck by the strong experimental bent in Poland. Maybe that’s just my perspective through Unsound, but there’s a deep tradition of independent experimental and instrumental music. It seems rare to see a performance with just a laptop or a synthesizer; there’s usually a cello or a lot of live instrumentation involved.

FL: Do you feel there is a distinct frequency or a specific approach to history in the music from this part of the world?

PS: It’s hard to generalise. I do feel there’s often a focus on folklore being recontextualised – like Raphael Rogiński, or Martyna Basta playing the zither. Or jazz coming through the music.

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I’ve always loved Rogiński’s approach to folk music, broadly speaking – like with his Coltrane album, he took that music and made it completely his own, though obviously with total reverence for the source material.

You could say the same about Talàn, except there he’s working with specifically Eastern European influences and emphasising the spirit of cultural exchange that has taken place across centuries.

FL: Which Polish artists have made the biggest impression on you over the years?

PS: Obviously Piotr Kurek, and recently Martyna Basta. My first encounter with her was her Morning Glory [a series of early-morning Unsound concerts – ed. note] show a few years ago, and I was completely transfixed.

I don’t think I ever wrote about them, but at previous festivals, the duo Sza/Za (Paweł Szamburski and Patryk Zakrocki) really made a big impression on me.

Oh, and I can’t forget Antonina Nowacka, both with Sofie Birch and solo. Hers was another Morning Glory show that I’ve never forgotten.

FL: You are also running a record label with Albert Salinas called Balmat Records. Two years ago you released an album ‘Dreams & Whispers’ by Bartosz Kruczyński.

PS: Yes, it’s a great album. He’s obviously a very talented techno producer, but I loved hearing him expand on the ambient ideas he started exploring on his Baltic Beat albums. It’s a little bit Detroit, a little bit Balearic – I’m a huge fan of those sounds.

He just did another Earth Trax record for Lapsus, which is the parent label of Balmat. My partner at Balmat, Albert, has run Lapsus for 15 years, and that’s how Bartosz brought his album to us. I’d love to do more with him.

FL: Imagine we are in a BBC studio after Unsound. How would you describe the experience of coming here to international listeners?

PS: One thing I value about Unsound and Poland is that I’m always surprised. I discover things I had no idea about. Often, Polish musicians aren’t touring internationally. Historically, the festival was deeply rooted [Kraków].

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Kraków, 2015, photo from Philip Sherburne's archive.

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You’d have shows in a church, the Museum of Municipal Engineering, the Wieliczka Salt Mine, Klub RE, or Pauza. I discovered the city’s psychogeography through these spaces. Little by little, gentrification and tourism have squeezed out the spaces available for Unsound.

Did you go on the silent walk around Kraków led by Mat Schulz, the festival’s artistic director, two years ago? We visited old spaces they used to use for Unsound. We ended up at Hotel Forum, which had become a food court. It was surreal – we felt like ghosts haunting the space.

FL: I can understand that. When I was a teenager, I spent summers in Kazimierz. It was a crazy place, and now it’s changed so much I can hardly stand it.

PS: Exactly. I see it every year. I don’t want to romanticise things – cities have to evolve and shouldn’t stay in ruins just to look picturesque. But at the same time, every corner is now an expensive boutique wine bar.

I imagine the rental market is horrible now with all the AirBnBs. We went through the same thing in Barcelona when I lived there.

FL: How do you listen to music when you sit down to review a record? Do you read about the artist and context first?

PS: It depends if it's a review for Pitchfork or for my Substack newsletter. If I’m writing substantially about it, I try to listen many times in different contexts. I listen at my desk, but also while cooking, at the gym, or running. I really like listening in the car to get different inputs and associations. Running is a great way to understand music; you start imprinting places onto certain passages.

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FL: How long have you been writing about music?

PS: Professionally since 1998, so coming up on 30 years.

FL: Are you tired?

PS: I’m tired of trying to earn a living from it, but not of the writing itself. That’s why I started my newsletter. I was frustrated by how much music I couldn't cover for Pitchfork – I was writing four reviews a month and receiving hundreds of promos. The newsletter gives me space to do more.

FL: Are you trying to find new ways to write?

PS: I’d like to, but I’m a creature of habit and tend to write what's familiar. However, for my recent Boards of Canada review, I tried a slightly different approach. With AI making it so easy for anyone to churn out ‘professional’ writing, I wanted to give it a personal touch. I felt it was something I could do that AI can’t.

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Philip Sherburne, Photo courtesy of the author.

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So I went ahead and wrote from a first-person perspective, beginning with an anecdote about attending the album’s listening party in Barcelona. Specifically, I was struck by the fact that after the listening party, I kept seeing hexagons everywhere I looked. It was like they had cast a spell on me.

FL: How do you discover new music?

PS: I get a ton sent by artists, labels, and publicists. Then there’s Bandcamp Friday [Bandcamp is a platform that allows you to buy music directly from artists or labels. Since March 2020, the site has been organizing Bandcamp Fridays – on this day, it waives its revenue share from musicians – ed. note]. I also use social media – Twitter mostly – and keep tabs open based on what people I follow are posting.

I don’t buy a lot of physical records anymore because shipping, customs, and tariffs are too expensive.

FL: With thousands of releases coming out daily, how do you manage it all without burning out?

PS: Practically, I use a Google Spreadsheet to track everything that comes into my inbox: artist, title, label, release date, and notes on whether to pitch it. I sort it by date to stay organised.

The hardest part is finding time to listen. When I edit reviews for Pitchfork, I listen to the album being reviewed to ensure accuracy. Plus, I need more silence these days when I work. My family isn’t always thrilled to hear noise or experimental ambient music while I’m cooking lunch.

FL: Are you tired of the sheer volume of new music? Do you go back to old favourites?

PS: I do listen to old favourites, though I sometimes feel guilty for not dedicating that time to new music. Recently, on a short drive, I put on Sonic Youth’s Sister, and it sounded amazing. It felt good, even if I felt a pang of guilt for not catching up on promos.

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FL: What do you find interesting in music globally today?

PS: There’s really interesting stuff happening in Spain right now that isn’t widely known outside the country. Marina Herlop is doing highly experimental vocal work, and the duo Tarta Relena updates folk music with a vocal focus. There's also Anna Ferrer from Menorca.

I'm also impressed by the scene in Beirut; a label called Ruptured Records is doing great work. I just wrote about Charbel Haber, an artist from Beirut now living in Paris. His new album is a beautiful, emotional piece of ambient post-rock influenced by the war.

FL: How would you define the role of a music journalist or critic today?

PS: For me, the most important thing is to introduce people to music they wouldn’t discover otherwise. I rarely write about music I don’t like. I’d rather use my time to tell you about Martyna Basta than write a disappointing review of a major release you'll hear about anyway.

My priority is discovery and contextualisation – helping people understand where the music comes from, what tradition it belongs to, and where it fits into the broader picture.

FL: You mentioned Kundera earlier. Is it important for you to engage with Eastern European cinema, literature, or history to contextualise the music?

PS: Theoretically, yes. But I'm not very knowledgeable about film, and I haven't been reading as widely as I should.

I did just finish a book by the British Hungarian author David Szalay, Flesh, that’s set between London and Hungary. It’s a fascinating book, very spare, very dark, that’s at least partially about the so-called crisis of masculinity. It’s also quite funny; I tore through it in about two days.

Mainly, though, I've been focused on reading Spanish novels because I realised I had no grounding in Spanish literature. So, Poland might have to wait.

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