OFF Festival Katowice 2012: Hard times call for extreme music

Atari Teenage Riot

It’s hard to imagine a better soundtrack to the digital revolution than the extreme sounds generated by Atari Teenage Riot. Digital hardcore, techno punk, whatever you want to call it — suffice it to say that the artists behind Delete Yourself! (1995) were years ahead of their time, and were greeted by both enthusiastic reviews (less common) and the ire of musical and political conservatives (much more common). Today ATR’s radical message and equally extreme form seem completely appropriate, as proved on their latest album Is This Hyperreal?, released in 2010 after a 12-year hiatus, and by the fact that the track “Black Flags” was snatched up by Anonymous and used in countless independently-created videos, becoming the de facto Occupy Wall Street anthem.

The band recently entered a phase dubbed “ATR 3.0” by frontman Alec Empire, thanks the addition of a new British vocalist, Rowdy Superstar. Check out their show at the OFF Festival to find out what that means in practice.

 

Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires

Born in Florida in 1948 and brought up on the streets of Brooklyn, Charles Bradley shares a perspective with Alec and company, but his music doesn’t make you want to man the barricades. It’s more of a glimpse into (and a lament over) the soul of a sick world, as in the poignant song “The World (Is Going Up In Flames),“ although there’s plenty of room for warmth, hope, and love in Bradley’s tunes. The singer — whose records are released by the legendary Daptone Records — is among the great soul voices that have little in common with the genre’s more radio-friendly branch: Bradley set off down a tougher, less spectacular path, alongside the likes of Otis Redding and Gil Scott-Heron. His love of music began in 1962, when his sister took him along to a James Brown show. Although his road to a professional career in music was long and winding — Bradley spent years working as a cook, singing only in his free time — his talent was finally discovered. We’re proud to welcome Charles Bradley to the OFF Festival.

 

Converge

The title of their previous album, Axe to Fall (2009), may have left a bit of hope, but the music did not. The titular axe falls in the first seconds of the opening track, and then again, and again, with no end. Founded 20 years and eight albums ago in Salem, Massachusetts, these proud representatives of the American avant-garde scene combine uncompromising hardcore with the ironclad sound of extreme metal. Pitchfork goes as far as to say that “Converge are this generation’s Black Flag.” They’re coming to Katowice to promote their latest LP, All We Love We Leave Behind, slated for release this spring.

 

Świetliki play Ogród Koncentracyjny

Legend has it that poet Marcin Świetlicki was once asked to read his poems to Czesław Miłosz and his entourage at some Very Important Event. Świetlicki called up his friends from the New Wave-punk band Trupa Wertera Utrata and screamed his poems right into the Nobel laureate’s face. We don’t know what the author of The Land of Ulro thought of the performance, but both the musicians and Świetlicki considered the experiment a success, thus giving birth to Świetliki, one of the most original bands on the Polish alternative scene. Hailed for their literary lyrics as well as Tomasz Radziszewski’s guitar licks and the cool, thumping rhythms of the Dyduch and Piotrowicz duo, Świetliki haven’t ceased to surprise and enthrall their audiences, from Ogród Koncentracyjny to their latest LP, Last putas melancolicas, all the while cultivating their position as the leading outsiders on the Polish music scene. They’ll be taking us on a trip into the past at the festival, performing their legendary 1995 debut Ogród Koncentracyjny.

 

Shabazz Palaces

A rapper on the Sub Pop roster? Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler doesn’t know the meaning of the word “impossible.” His career peaked two decades ago when the New York group Digable Planets redefined hip-hop with their gold record Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space). Butler soon dropped off the radar, only to return with his old band and later surprise the entire alternative music world with his latest incarnation, Shabazz Palaces. It comes as no surprise that the debut LP Black Up made it onto many critics’ year-end top 10 lists in 2011.

Other Lives

Though they hail from the cowboy town of Stillwater, Oklahoma, Other Lives have little to do with country & western music. The critics see them more as America’s answer to Radiohead or the most serious competitor to The National. Singer, composer, multiinstrumentalist, and band frontman Jesse Tabish pays no heed to the pigeonholing, proving on last year’s Tamer Animals that Other Lives are perfectly comfortable combining chamber folk with NYC minimalism and a nod to European indie rock.

kIRk

Although Paweł Bardzo, Olgierd Dokalski, and Filip Kalinowski have been making music together for over a decade, last year marked a true breakthrough for the band, thanks to the release of their excellent album titled Msza Święta w Brąswałdzie. But rave reviews and live shows are two different matters. How will their dark, improvised electronic visions hold up live? We’ll find out soon enough.

We’d like to remind everyone that tickets and passes are now on sale at the OFF Store at the OFF Festival website as well as the ticket sales network Seetickets (UK) .

The following tickets and passes are currently available:

1.      3-Day Festival OFF Passwith or without Campground Access: 120/160 PLN — provides access to all three days of the festival at Dolina Trzech Stawów, August 3 to 5.

2.      4-Day Festival OFF Pass with or without Campground Access: 160/200 PLN — provides access to all events on August 2 as well as all three days of the festival at Dolina Trzech Stawów, August 3 to 5.

3.      OFF Before Party Ticket: 75 PLN — provides access to concerts at the Katowice Cultural Center and Hipnoza (Matthew Herbert, Alva Noto, Nils Frahm, Sleep Party People).

Remember! Prices listed above are only valid until April 16.