2K88’s Album SHAME Released on Unsound Label. Listen Now.

On Friday, June 28th, Unsound is releasing 2K88’s SHAME on vinyl, as well as in digital format and on streaming.

On SHAME, producer 2K88 (Przemysław Jankowiak, fka 1988) invokes the era and spirit of the PL SOUND, a local genre inspired by British soundsystem music but infused with the social, urban, and sonic themes that developed during Poland’s post-communist transformation. SHAME is a progressive, bass-fueled transmission built from scraps of hip-hop’s past; it’s a cinematic vision of Y2K Polish rap that’s in constant flux, where every detail is just as important as the whole structure.

Sampling the Polish canon of beats from the low-rent districts of the nineties, 2K88 plunders tracks already based on samples and channels the experiences of the generations that grew up with those sounds, struggling and celebrating with them. And just as he did with his previous projects Etamski and 1988, 2K88 draws out, processes, and ages his elements in an echo chamber, asking questions and formulating answers. In Mixmag, 2K88 states that “the central theme of the album is Polish rap from the 90s and 00s, both literally and metaphorically”. 

Working on the fringes of genre, there are also traces of ambient, dub and jungle, flickering into low-lit urban rhythms, chunky nightclub basslines and paranoid production touches. Not for a second does 2K88 succumb to today’s omnipresent nostalgia, instead putting reconstruction before deconstruction — he finds whole worlds in his scraps, and in the long-gone turn-of-the-millennium period, whose liminal qualities feel like a precursor to the unease of the present moment.

We hope you like this album as much as we do!

Note: at the end of July, we’re also putting out an album by Polish guitarist and composer Raphael Rogiński. Named after the grass snake Žaltys, a revered household spirit in Lithuanian folklore, the album explores themes of Eastern European mythology and nature. We’ll be back with more info about Žaltys in July when the album is released, but for now you can already listen to the first single Šilinis Viržis, which features Lithuanian musician and singer Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė. You can also pre-order on vinyl or digital format.