Unsound in 2022 – A Year in Review

With the year coming to an end we felt like making a list of all the Unsound things that have happened – and to thank you all for being part of it!

At the start of the year, Unsound directors Mat Schulz and Gosia Płysa were awarded Poland’s most prestigious cultural award, Paszport Polityki, for Unsound’s activities during the pandemic – including an online festival and 2021’s IRL event. Congratulations once again to the entire team, and thanks to everyone who supported our experiments during this challenging time.

2022 was also the year our flagship Kraków event celebrated its bubbly 20th edition, and returned to a full 8-day format, including commissioned shows, premieres, club nights and an extensive discourse program. We also produced Unsound Adelaide in Australia as a part of Illuminate Festival, Unsound New York at the Lincoln Center, the third edition of Ephemera Festival in Warsaw, and co-presented an event at Bourse de Commerce in Paris. Over 250 artists were involved in these events, and thousands attended the shows and discussions. 

War in Ukraine had an effect on the whole world – and of course felt close to us in Kraków. Through activities and the festival, we supported Ukrainian artists, and in 2023 will continue to find ways to work together with Ukrainian partners to address this horrific situation, both within and outside the context of the festival.

This year also saw the Unsound record label grow, with the acclaimed album by Sofie Birch and Antonina Nowacka: Languoria, co-released with the Warsaw label Mondoj. The album Weavings captured the 2020 Unsound online group improvisation conceived and curated with Nicolás Jaar, and was released in collaboration with Jaar’s label Other People. The EP Community of Grieving, by Zosia Hołubowska and Julia Giertz, also had its origins in the Unsound online edition  – and it was great to see the project grow.

Our podcast series also grew and includes mixes from 2022 and 2021 editions, featuring Tim Reaper b2b Kode9, Tom Boogizm, DJ Travella and RP Boo b2b Sherelle – all with sets recorded live at the festival. Mixes from Katarina Gryvul, Alien Body and Sofie Birch & Antonina Nowacka were commissioned for the series. 

We were involved in two presentations of Hildur Guðnadóttir’s live show Chernobyl, to raise money for humanitarian causes related to the invasion of Ukraine - a total of over 90 000 euros was donated via our partners Dark Mofo in Hobart, Australia and CTM and Atonal in Berlin.

Earlier in the year, we also produced recording sessions for Ben Frost for the TV series 1899, which included Sinfonietta Cracovia and a range of Polish musicians (full list below). This follows previous recording sessions produced by Unsound in Poland for Ben Frost for the scores for Dark and Fortitude.

Stay tuned for information on 2023 events in Kraków, London, Adelaide and New York, as well as further releases on the Unsound label. We’ll also continue to release Unsound sets in our podcast series, and are about to launch a selection of video recordings from our 2022 discourse program. 

It has been a busy year and we are full of gratitude towards all of you who support us, whether as audience members, artists or partners! We never take it for granted. We wish you all the best for 2023, and hope to see you soon!

Artists involved in the recording of Ben Frost’s score for 1899 include: Sinfonietta Cracovia, Artur Majewski, Anna Pasic, Paulina Owczarek, Tomasz Duda, Piotr Wróbel, Michał Górczyński, Wiktor Krzak, Michał Olearczyk, Marek Gumiela, Kacper Świątek, Bartłomiej Duś, Michał Poniżnik - clarinet, Tomasz Sowa, Paweł Dziewoński and Małgorzata Mikulska.