As the artist himself admits, he grew up online, which may explain his eclectic style. However, Ploski’s electronic compositions are not about stylistic tensions but about expressing emotions and an attempt to sort out the colossal everyday life. In 2025, the producer’s track appeared on the soundtrack of the final season of the American series Stranger Things.
‘I had no formal education, and because of that, even now, after so many concerts and releases, I feel like a complete impostor – like a bootleg artist, a fake performer, a shoe-shine boy in the world of music,’ confesses Julek Ploski (actually Julian Płoski), one of the most intriguing Polish electronic music producers today. The word ‘impostor’ he uses can mean a traitor or a modern-day Dyzma, and a few years ago, it was nominated for the title of Youth Word of the Year. No wonder it appears in Ploski’s statement, since he, despite his impressive discography, is only 26 years old.
And it all started at home. Ploski recalls that, aside from not attending music school, as a teenager he did not play in a band or perform at events – he stayed at home, slept little, and explored the virtual world: ‘Until I went to university, my world was called “my little PC and me”, because I was fascinated by the fact that thanks to it I could do everything: programme, edit films, use Photoshop, write essays, make music...’
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Julek Ploski, photo: courtesy of the artist
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Ploski quickly began creating beats, partly because music always filled his home. Today, he admits he learned about many kinds of music thanks to his parents, who have very broad horizons and introduced him to art pop, hip-hop, and club electronica. The artist laughs at the fact that he even discovered dubstep thanks to his father. This inspiration was even more significant because the success of artists such as Skrillex – so-called bedroom producers (musicians who produce music without a professional studio and using publicly available software) – gave Ploski confidence.
Deconstructed shopping
Ploski’s debut album, Tesco, was released in 2018. In an interview he gave at the time to the Nowa Muzyka portal, the producer explained that he began contemplating recording this album during his first year of secondary school. Although his creative process changed frequently during this period as he learned new programmes and developed new skills, cutting and modifying field recordings remained essential to it. Therefore, the title Tesco is not an artistic metaphor but rather the setting or even the protagonist of Ploski’s debut album.
Indeed, the producer’s frequent visits to the local supermarket were the main inspiration for recording this album. In the notes accompanying the release, Ploski mentioned that, for many years, the ubiquitous beeps, murmurs, and other sounds echoing through the store’s aisles blended with the music playing in his headphones while shopping. Therefore, Tesco seems to be a natural extension of that acoustic experience. However, it was not just about accurately recreating the shop’s soundscape, because, as the producer adds, ‘It was also great fun, which took me away from the real world a little and gave me some kind of clumsy illusion of control.’
Although Ploski admits that he did not have high expectations for his debut, as he was completely unfamiliar with the music scene and its preferences, Tesco received a highly enthusiastic response from critics. Bartosz Nowicki wrote about it on the blog 1uchem/1okiem: ‘The material reveals Ploski’s deconstructive talents, as he forges subtle melodies and rhythmic forms from an amorphous jumble of noise, reverberations and glitches. The dramaturgy of Tesco is developed gradually, without haste, culminating in a spectacular, multi-layered climax in the finale [...]. The composer’s restraint in terms of composition and dramaturgy, worthy of an experienced producer, is admirable here.’
Hallucinations
Like Tesco, Ploski’s second release is experimental and exhibits features of a concept album. As the album title śpie (i’m dreaming) suggests, the tracks attempt to capture the state between waking and sleeping. Consequently, the often disturbed logic of these musical stories, ‘broken’ melodies, and mood shifts.
This glitchy aesthetic and the juxtaposition of pop elements and purely experimental solutions led to the producer being compared to artists like Daniel Lopatin and, above all, Arca. However, the unpredictability of śpie and the resulting unsettling quality of this album mainly arise from the artist’s personal life.
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śpie was created through great pain – it was the first time I sought psychiatric help, the first time I took psychotherapy seriously, and every day I was tormented by nasty sleep paralyses. I didn’t sleep well at night because I was terrified, and during the day, my entire body ached; I was walking around in a kind of intense derealisation. I would fall asleep during lectures and on buses, where I would experience more sleep paralysis. Sometimes, I would have three or four episodes a night. It was a never-ending spiral of living in hallucination, and THAT is what this album is about, or THAT is what this album is.
The fragmented nature of śpie, its eclecticism, and overwhelming character are, on one hand, an expression of an artist overwhelmed by everyday life; on the other, a side effect of hyperactivity, which was Ploski’s way of escaping his own thoughts. The producer mentions that during that period, he would start his day listening to concrete music and end it listening to deconstructed club music. Every day, he would go to the cinema to see anything, just not to be alone with his thoughts. For this reason, Ploski admits that he is reluctant to return to śpie, an album he still cannot quite get to grips with.
Beyond irony
At the time of recording his second album, Ploski was already a student. He began studying at the Warsaw Film School but completed his master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw’s Faculty of Media Art. There, he attended classes led by Wojciech Bąkowski, who skillfully interpreted his student’s musical ideas and examined them in detail. During one such discussion, the lecturer reportedly told Ploski that he was clearly born with a sense of irony. And that, according to the producer, was an accurate diagnosis.
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I always say I grew up online, and I genuinely feel that way. Many gestures that might be seen as ironic come completely intuitively to me; they are so ingrained in me that I am not even aware of them. Another thing is that defending myself against the label of an ironist has become pointless because I write a song so seriously that my teeth grind, yet someone later mostly sees humour in it... and that’s okay. I probably shouldn’t claim the right to decide how my music is perceived.
Although Ploski’s online persona enjoys using humour, which can also be seen in the titles of his songs and their accompanying descriptions, his music is often created for serious reasons. I have already mentioned the context in which the album śpie was created, but it is also worth noting the circumstances surrounding the recording of the EP Human Sapiens. This release, with its vibrant mood, stands entirely apart from its predecessor. Yet, this lively, danceable album is more than merely functional. It is also a collection of songs recorded in defiance of homophobic, dehumanising statements, which were escalating in Polish public debate at the time.
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At that time, I was spitting out many extremely plastic bits, and there was hardly anything as enjoyable as that experience. It was cool to find out that despair can be expressed through exaggerated, spasmodically rushing rhythms. Human Sapiens contains more than just helplessness – perhaps also some form of prayer and hope.
Life in a blockbuster
The theme of irony returns in Ploski’s third album, titled Hotel*****. The artist admits that with this album, he is trying to confront both ‘colossal everyday life’ and his online image, which borders on parody. Therefore, the album released in 2023 features many solemn moments and expressive gestures.
Another point is that the nature of the album Hotel***** also reflects the producer’s fascination with film music. During the recording of this album, Ploski’s style even earned the label ‘trailer-core’:
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I’ve always watched many films, often in a rush, so I didn’t pay much attention to the soundtracks. Fortunately, that changed a few years ago. Reality still feels complicated and immeasurable to me, but film music can organise things a bit and give them rhythm. I know that life isn’t like a film, and I don’t want it to be like a film, but on the other hand, I have a strong feeling that I’m living in a blockbuster.
The Hotel***** received very positive reviews. Paweł Klimaczak wrote about this album in Dwutygodnik: ‘It is easy to accuse Hotel ***** of using codes whose readability will fade with time. And if it were just empty stylistic juggling [...], I would agree to classify this album as a clever and skilful curiosity, nothing more. But the emotional charge injected by Julek Ploski into radical stylistic measures elevates Hotel ***** to the status of a document of contemporary human experience.’
The music composed for Hotel***** was also thoroughly analysed by Bartek Chaciński. In a review published on the Polifonia blog, he highlighted how the producer builds the album’s atmosphere by creating an orchestral sound. In the author’s opinion, the intricately crafted compositions and the mood that accompanies them mean that the eclecticism close to the producer’s heart need not necessarily be interpreted as a joke or a means of creating distance. Rather, it is about building suspense and conveying emotions.
The album Hotel***** was released by the American label Orange Milk, which specialises in experimental electronic music and sound collages. Ploski admits that the invitation to collaborate with a label whose catalogue he had been following for years was an important step in building his self-esteem. Moreover, he already recognises that this collaboration has helped him reach new audiences outside Poland.
Ploski’s immediate plans include releasing an album for the Slovakian label mappa and another EP. In November 2024, Komuna Warszawa hosted the premiere of the play M4G1C BL0W, for which he composed the music. Additionally, the artist intends to release albums with his new band, record mashups, and run the BFF Music label. Even though he admits ‘it’s all too much,’ the musician shows no signs of slowing down. In 2025, his track Car Boy landed on the soundtrack of the highly anticipated final season of the hit U.S. series Stranger Things. The Polish producer’s breakthrough didn’t go unnoticed — Gazeta Wyborcza picked up the story, publishing an interview with Ploski by Krzysztof Nowak. One thing’s clear, no matter how big the moment: he’s just getting started, and he’ll keep surprising us.
