This year's Unsound thema is "Flower Power" a counterculture exercise which honors topics related to main humanity spaces of interaction: time, nature, (a)social media, technology and drugs. All in the slightly dark spirit of Unsound: a world of bliss and pain that curates on the edge music, visual art, philosophy and movies. Mat Schulz is the artistic director and co-founder of the festival that has transformed again Krakow's venues in a hub of on the edge performances and installations.
Księżyc's (tr. 'The Moon') neo medieval sounds were introduced by Richard Skelton’s drone ambient performance Sunday last. Richard’s act was a gradually pulsating and evolving composition with modulated spectral dimensions. Księżyc was about both freedom and structuralism, about play, a forrest minimalistic sounds journey rooted in the slavic folklore but modern through composition.
The music could be the soundtrack of a dark fairytale depicting the abused nature on Earth imagining forrest playful sound entities with resonance in the children stories. Pawel Romanczuck (Małe Instrumenty) added colours from its small instruments to the Sunday's "Maidenhair" first Unsond act from this years Unsound.
From Sunday the premiere of a sounds algorithm installation of metal resonator samples dedicated to Harry Bertoia titled Polifonie, can be visited at Krikoteka, a modern building on the Vistula river dedicated to the work of the Polish theatre artist Tadeusz Kantor.
Monday brought Armen Avanessian with a fascinated panel discussion on time, speculative time complex ( "The Time Complex Post-Contemporary", Armen Avanessian, Suhail Malik). The discussion connected again time and information, communities, information overwhelming, concepts and thoughts of an imagined future. Discussion followed with the projection of the movie Hyperstition on the narratives of temporalities.
Eleh's ambient drone and evolving minimalist pure sound waves, pure analogue was another performance to remember at this year Unsound. Małopolska Garden of Art was the venue the weeks evening performances started at. The amazing lights pillars and the litten smoke presence completing the evolving Eleh's performance at MOS will be certainly remembered.
Pan Daijing's performance was an overwhelming mystical and brutal dialog of voice and sound, escaping on improvised varying rhythms.
Manggha hosted on Wednesday Laurel Halo's elegant unique act. Together with the New York guest percussionist Eli Keszler, Laurel compositions mixed polyrhythms of jazz, pop vocoders and soul lyrics with keyboard electronics, sound synthesis, sometimes adding elements of dub through the delay/reverbs utilized; a fantastically composed granular act.
The screening of "After its own death", a mix of images and shootings from post apocalyptical set of Murmansk, a city in Rusia's Nort West Arctic, happened yesterday at Kijov Cinema. NIvhek (Liz Harris/Grouper) and MFO's provided a post apocalyptical experience in which nature dominates the city in a spirit of isolation and dream backed by Liz's reverbed voice waves sometime synced with the sea images.
Vincent' Moon's "Hibridos" projection followed after and was an ecstatic mix of rituals, almost a ritual in itself with fascinating close shootings of the various today spiritual cults from Brazil. Mixing of the visuals and the sounds sometimes generated, sampled, or reverbed made the projection unique. Vincent's ecstatic resonance and Rabih Beani's inspiration and empathy created a fantastic experience at Krakow's Kijov CInema.
And there's more: Black Zone Myth Chant played its clear drum machines sounds yesterday in the old Hotel Forum kitchen which is now Room 3 for the ones used with the 3 rooms of the festival.
Lastly today Ideologies of Blockchain presentation given by Mat Dryhurst was about music independence, contribution and philosophies of shared equity in music production and yet another counter-culture element of this year's Unsound thema: Flower Power.
Still to follow are the performances in Nowa Huta, ICE and Engineering Museum, Juliusz Słowacki Theatre and the DJ acts at Hotel Forum.
The industrial sounds of Neubauten and the new music of Ben Frost will be heard today. Apart from the Forum DJ acts (not to miss Ter's modular synthesizer performance) Visible Cloaks (RVNG Records) are playing tomorrow and will be releasing in December their new album "Lex".
Unsound ends this Sunday with the closing party and the unmissable ambient sounds from Gas.
Week's Photo Gallery:
