This was my second time at Unsound. I've been following it for many years but due to the lack of time and money I had to skip a number of editions. Last year's Dislocation truly amazed me but that's what the first times do, they impress you a lot. You discover new venues, you meet all these people and finally have a chance to compare all of it with what you imagined before.
Flower Power was the 15th edition of Unsound festival. For me it started on Wednesday as I couldn't come to Kraków earlier. I have to admit that I didn't exactly feel the difference between this year's theme and the previous one but it may be my fault because I didn't have a chance to see all of installations.
A beautiful poster of this year's edition.
Unsound Dislocation vs. Flower Power
In comparison to Unsound Dislocation the biggest difference was not so many events during the day. Even though last year it truly drained me of all energy and made partying at Hotel Forum until 6 a.m almost impossible I missed it a lot. Last year before the shows in Forum we had: 2 or more events on Thursday, Friday and Saturday whereas this year you had a chance to go to 2 events on Thursday (one of which was Bad Weather not included in the festival pass), 2 events on Friday and 1 event on Saturday for which you also had to buy an additional ticket. It made quite a big difference for me especially when you realise that the best shows of Unsound Dislocation took place mostly then not in Hotel Forum last year.
Best shows (from Wednesday to Sunday till 8 p.m)
DJ Sprinkles
The most anticipated show for me turned out to be the best one - sometimes it's about getting what you need. My backache was already terrible when he started his set but it was so spectacular that I managed to stay on the dancefloor for almost half an hour in a great pain. The rest I listened to in a sitted position but it didn't spoil my reception whatsoever. In this review I will refer to Terre Thaemlitz using a pronoun "he" and you can learn why I will do it here. Citing Kate Hutchinson:
The gender lines are blurred –Thaemlitz turns up for our interview wearing “boy drag” and suggests that, if pronouns really have to be used, Terre is “she” and Sprinkles is “he”.
DJ Sprinkles is a magician; his feeling while he mixes tracks is unmatched, every transition was so perfect and smooth that you couldn't tell when exactly the songs changed. I never thought about how much you can achieve by messing around with simple hi hats using panning, volume and EQ. The palette of sounds was actually small but DJ Sprinkles knew exactly how to use each one of these by paying attention to the timing and selection of frequencies. What genuinely impressed me was the fact that he was able to make it so interesting and intruiging while playing a certain track for such a long period of time and sometimes even coming back to it after a transition. This kind of mixing always seemed attractive to me but I've never heard someone doing it so well; in fact, in most cases DJs I listened to did it because of laziness or fear of making a mistake and they failed greatly.
Finally, when it was the time to end his performance DJ Sprinkles astounded me one more time by playing an extremely soulful and emotional piano piece. I couldn't expect any better closer than this one. Thank you.
Giant Swan Live
The duo presented highly energetic and rhythmic industrial techno. They made use of modular synthesizers, noise vocals, beat and delay machines. Of course, it was simple, without a doubt the sounds and transitions were not complex but it was meant to be that way and it was perfect. Guys had a lot of fun playing and I greatly enjoyed listening to it and dancing till I lost my breath. I definietly need more modular techno gigs. Such a pleasure to see almost everyone with a big grin moving to the harsh sounds in the room.
Lanark Artefax A/V Live Show
Picked by the Resident Advisor as the one of five key performances at Unsound and I can't agree more. A show filled with follow ups to a number of important artists such as Aphex Twin, Oneohtrix Point Never, Squarepusher and sometimes I even heard some inspirations from Gabor Lazar. The performance was perfectly built up with a climax point and a perfect ending. Sounds were interesting and changed so frequently that one couldn't feel bored. For me, the visual part of the show was nothing special but it corresponded well with the tracks and that's perfectly enough. It was Lanark's debut but it didn't seem like one at all. Lanark deserves a must see mark.
Holly Herndon
I needed 10 minutes to understand why Holly Herndon was booked by Radiohead for their tour. You may not be much into electronic music but I bet you would appreciate what she does anyway. Personally speaking, that's a quality of a true artist and Holly is definitely the one. The choir was an interesting addition to her show but I assume that it might be even better without it as sometimes the voices took a lot of frequencies and by that music lost some power. Anyway, Holly Herndon was meant to be one of the biggest headliners and she undeniably proved that her show was worth waiting for.
GAS A/V Show
I am a great admirer of GAS' 'Nah und Fern' compilation; it's like a definition of an ambient background music which enables you to listen to it without paying much attention to the specific sounds and transitions. The problem I have with Narkopop is that it's too complex and engaging to use it in such a way. However, at the same time it lacks any kind of emotions to make you motivated to come back to this record and give it more chances.
The live show turned out to be quite similar in this regard but luckily GAS thought about the visual part which made it interesting enough to follow it. I can easily admit that the visuals were one of the best I've ever seen. It perfectly complemented the music while still not distracting the attention away from it. I enjoyed this experience but all I can say is that it was intriguing at best - nothing more and nothing less.
The live show turned out to be quite similar in this regard but luckily GAS thought about the visual part which made it interesting enough to follow it. I can easily admit that the visuals were one of the best I've ever seen. It perfectly complemented the music while still not distracting the attention away from it. I enjoyed this experience but all I can say is that it was intriguing at best - nothing more and nothing less.
Shows I enjoyed but don't feel like writing about
- The Jon Gibson Group - check Visitations, just do it.
- Laurel Halo & Eli Keszler
- DJ MM
- Nina Kraviz
- Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement
- Robin Fox
- Zonal & Moor Mother
- Bad Weather by Arturas Bumšteinas
Shows I didn't enjoy or which disappointed me
- Ben Frost - I was about 15 minutes late and it could make a difference but what I heard then didn't make me regretful.
- Lee Gamble - it was highly absorbing to a point but ended in a weird way and I felt as impressing the audience at Unsound wasn't one of the top priorities for him this day unfortunately.
- Nivhek & MFO - like, guys, please reconsider using a camera,
maybesometimes it's not worth it. - Vincent Moon & Priscilla Telmon & Rabih Beani - what's the point of such projects? Is it about the music or about the image? I couldn't figure it out and also am fed up with all these “experimental-ethnographic studies of current-day spiritual cults in Brazil, mixing tradition and modernity.”
Summary
Unsound festival in Kraków is still a place to be in October. Despite the fact that we couldn't enjoy as many events and venues as last year, the organizers and artists were able to provide me with nothing but joy. Also, I heard few rumors that Unsound lost some dotations and if you follow other festivals in Poland you should know how difficult it is to get them so I fully understand the reduction and have no complaints as an attender; I wrote about that just to compare the two editions. The price for such an opportunity to hear so many great artists from all over the world is still extremely low and do not hesitate if you still haven't gone to Unsound in Kraków.
I appreciate a lot and I mean a looooot the progress in acoustics regard. This year the gigs sounded a way better; sound technicians did a great job of handling with different sounds that artists presented. If you read this blog, you know how important it is for me so thanks to all that had to work with the quality of the sound at Unsound. It may seem that I always give only superlatives here but in fact it's not so obvious and easy to achieve as last year in Hotel Forum was a nightmare and I spent 4 days there in earplugs.
I appreciate a lot and I mean a looooot the progress in acoustics regard. This year the gigs sounded a way better; sound technicians did a great job of handling with different sounds that artists presented. If you read this blog, you know how important it is for me so thanks to all that had to work with the quality of the sound at Unsound. It may seem that I always give only superlatives here but in fact it's not so obvious and easy to achieve as last year in Hotel Forum was a nightmare and I spent 4 days there in earplugs.
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