OFF Festival Katowice 2012: Presenting Thurston Moore

Thurston Moore

This artist needs no introduction, but just for the sake of formality, here it goes: Thurston Moore is a co-founder and backbone of the New York noise rock icon Sonic Youth, an excellent and original guitarist, a legendary songwriter, an experimental music and film score composer, and an independent writer and publisher. Fans and critics were enthralled by his 2011 collection of beautiful acoustic ballads, Demolished Thoughts, produced by Beck. We find all of Thurston’s incarnations – noisy or melancholy and soft – equally convincing, which is why we’re very happy to welcome him to his first performance at the OFF Festival.

 

anbb: alva noto & blixa bargeld

Combining two perfectly matching halves isn’t what makes duets powerful: it’s the juxtaposition of fire and ice. That’s precisely the formula applied by Carsten Nicolai, better-known to experimental electronic music audiences as Alva Noto, and Blixa Bargeld, who tears down walls and musical conventions with Einstürzende Neubauten, and for years accompanied Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds. Alva Noto is all about minimalism and cold precision, while Blixa Bargeld represents courage, expression, and a dash of unpredictability. The two have been collaborating for years, but their official debut didn’t come until 2010, when they released the excellent record Mimikry. Let’s hope we hear the rest of that story at the OFF Festival…

 

Baroness

Baroness are, next to Isis and Mastodon, one of the most interesting metal bands to surface on the American music scene after 2000. Their drumwork and massive riffs are clearly born of the heritage of Metallica and perhaps even Black Sabbath, yet they boldly explore new sounds and search for inspiration in genres so distant from orthodox metal as punk and garage noise rock. After two critically acclaimed LPs, Red Album and Blue Record, as well as a series of performances alongside metal heavywieghts, Baroness decided to take 2011 off. Or, perhaps more accurately, they took a year off to work on their upcoming album Yellow & Green (to be released this July), enlisting John Congleton (Explosions in the Sky, St. Vincent) as the producer.

 

Josh T. Pearson

Texas native Josh T. Pearson was once the frontman for the much missed group Lift to Experience, with whom he released just a single, legendary album, The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads. He’s been performing alone for almost a decade, but he hasn’t seemed too eager to record: his first solo album, Last of the Country Gentlemen – a true folk diamond released on Mute Records – was recorded just last year, when the singer found himself living in Berlin. “These are less songs, more open wounds,” notices one Mojo reviewer. This is gearing up to be a show for audiences that aren’t ashamed or afraid of their emotions.

 

Nosowska

Born on the last day of summer vacation, Nosowska must be Poland’s hardest-working vocalist. Not a year goes by without a new album – solo, or with her main band, Hey. And while Hey continues to cling (although not as desperately, nowadays) to the general rock aesthetic, Katarzyna Nosowska’s own albums eschew stylistic boundaries and roam freely between guitar rock and cold, electronic sounds, as evidenced by her sixth album (subversively titled 8), which was among Poland’s best alternative releases in 2011.

 

Kanał Audytywny

Łukasz “L.U.C.” Rostkowski and Bartłomiej “Spaso” Spasowski are getting back together: the Wrocław-based Kanał Audytywny is coming back for the OFF Festival! Blurring the boundaries between hip-hop, jazz, new electronic sounds, and performance, Kanał Audytywny released three albums (Spasoasekuracja, Płyta Skirtotymiczna, and Neurofotoreceptoreplotyka Jako Magia Bytu) before splitting up. But now they’re back to surprise, teach, and entertain us once again.

 

That’s not all the good news. We’re glad to announce that the British magazine The Quietus will be an official partner of the festival and the curator of one day at the Experimental Stage. Their guests will include anbb: alva noto & blixa bargeld and Josh T. Pearson, as well as the previously-announced Colin Stetson, Shabazz Palaces, and Container.

 

We also wish to announce that Black Face (US) have disbanded and will not be performing at the festival.

 

Tickets and passes are now on sale at the OFF Festival website and the ticket sales networks Seetickets (UK).

 

Now on sale:

1. OFF 3-Day Festival Pass with or without Campground Access: 120/160 zł — provides access to all three days of the festival at Dolina Trzech Stawów, August 3 to 5. Prices are valid till April 16.

2. Tickets to this year’s OFF Club (May 11–13, Światowid Cinema, Katowice) — available exclusively at the OFF Festival website. Tickets are 30 zł (until May 10) and 40 zł (May 11, 12, 13).