Czarny Latawiec / Black Kite
His name is Daniel Brożek. He is a sound producer working for mik.musik.! and BDTA. Some of the sound-artworks made by Czarny Latawiec often make reference to works by Xenakis or Cage, and he also uses African rhythms in a surprisingly clever way. Taking into account the fact that the artist constantly plays with loops, tempo, and fiddles with intonation and various languages, and that all of this is mixed with sound signals (such as in “Concrete BXL”), his works can be classified as plunderphonic phono-poetry with club and tribal music rhythm.
He has not only performs his works at numerous festivals, prepared sound installations and recorded soundtracks, but he also assumed the role of the curator, of the Canti Illuminati festival, SURVIVAL Art Review and G23 Gallery. On top of that, he is an art critic and his features have been published in Glissando, Notes na 6 tygodni and Ruch Muzyczny magazines.
RSS B0YS
FREED0M 0F CH0ICE IS KIND 0F IMP0RTANT, FR0M AFRICAN DESERTS T0 EUR0PEAN DANCEFL00RS — that’s how they describe they aspi- and inspi-rations on SoundCloud.
They conceal their identities behind masks of their own creation, combining niquabs, lace veils, and all kinds of ethnic masks. They enter the stage wearing these masks on their faces and every time they present performances composed of shamanistic and techno structures. It is difficult to list specific genres which these artists resort to; they set out to make it impossible, as in their opinion their activities are “post-everything”. There is no doubt that the project is very coherent, and its two mysterious artist authors are regularly engage in online activities: They communicate with their fans through short messages written in a kind of distorted, personalized 1337 language (LEET, an alpha-numerical language that uses letters and number, with numbers often used instead of letters. It is used for online, niche communication). Their works are all about samples from audio tapes bought from African marketplaces, and then combined with the flow of club music. They are also about masks, installations, and the unique forms of communication and activities found on the web. Who would have thought that audiovisual projects with an afro-futurist approach are actually being developed in Poland?
KUCHARCZYK
It is difficult to describe the scope of activities undertaken by Wojciech Kucharczyk without resorting to categorisation. He’s a hyperactive musician, artist, traveller, adventurer, originator, photographer, a person at play, organising exhibitions, writing books, issuing albums — it is clear that he does not accept art as being divided into separate fields. Kucharczyk is the founder of the mik.musik.! studio-company, through which he collaborates with the artists we’ve described earlier, as with many others. He presented his projects — including The Complainer, Mołr Drammaz, and Retro*Sex*Galaxy — in almost every remote corner of the world, starting in New York and finishing in Bethlehem (and much further away!). Incredibly creative, active, and hungry for innovation, he loves warm sounds. No-one can stand still during his concerts. Diehard hipsters maybe, are the only exception.
Tape Alienz
This is the nickname of Łukasz Poleszak, a producer from Tychy, and the instigator ofthe Wudec and Tape Alienz projects, the latter of which had an air of mystery about it from its very beginning. Nobody knew how many people were involved in it or who they were. In the interviews, he/they was/were talking about being inspired by the universe. His/their first album “Tape Alienz” was issued in 2015. It contains truly mystic sound recordings, drawing from techno music, darkwave and ambient, based on Middle East and African inspirations and samples, clipped and manipulated an almost infinite number of times. The secret was finally revealed in the tenth edition of Poleszak’s project, entitled “Obudzić Sypialnię Indoor Festival”, which took place in October 2016 in an old factory in Katowice. Wudec played a set inspired by rave of the 1988/89 and detroit techno, and this is how he disclosed himself as the creator of the Tape Alienz cosmic project.
Both albums are available online free of charge.
Edited by Alexander Cellmer
