OFF Festival Katowice 2012: The Electric Apocalypse Meets Acoustic Ballads

Swans

Swans’ 2010 return to the studio and stage was inevitable. Few bands in rock history have had as much influence on guitar-driven music from the mid–90s onward: from My Bloody Valentine, Godflesh, Neurosis, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor to Sunn O))); from shoegaze and post-rock to industrial metal and drone — the Big Bang that took place in New York in the mid–80s left its mark on innumerable projects. Many years have passed since Swans’ full-length debut Filth, and the term No Wave is now familiar mostly to avid readers of popular music history textbooks, but one thing hasn’t changed: the inspired determination and divine insanity with which noise prophet Michael Gira and his bandmates perform their onstage ritual.

It’s likely that OFF Festival audiences will hear tracks off the group’s upcoming album, currently in the works, titled The Seer. If you do decide to venture up close to the stage — Swans’ magnetic pull is hard to resist — take our advice: don’t forget your earplugs.

Battles

Rare is that band that can worthily be called a leader and a true innovator on the alternative scene after the release of just two albums. This New York group, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this year, has succeeded in this difficult art. On the one hand, the musicians in Battles have brought in their virtuosity and the experience gained in previous projects (such as Helmet and Don Caballero), and on the other hand, they’ve assumed an attitude of complete openness to new challenges, as made evident by Battles’ second release Gloss Drop (2011) and the concerts that followed, including the latest edition of the legendary festival All Tomorrow’s Parties, curated by Battles.

 

Kurt Vile and The Violators

No, “Kurt Vile” isn’t a cheap pseudonym. Hailing from the suburbs of Philadelphia, this long-haired bard owes his perfect combination of first and last names to his music-loving dad, who also gave him his first instrument: a banjo, so that Kurt could play bluegrass and country. But while the influence of these genres is still evident in his music, Kurt’s latest work is more reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen. Not literally — the similarity lies in their eclectic approach to music. On the one hand, Kurt has remained faithful to folk traditions, but on the other, his arrangements and styles reveal sounds more rooted in the world of alternative guitar music. No wonder his latest album, Smoke Ring For My Halo (2011, Matador Records), won universal acclaim from fans and critics.

 

Baxter Dury

Perhaps things would have been easier if he had just followed in the footsteps of his famous father, Ian Dury, but Baxter isn’t one to take the easy way out. His latest and third album, the critically-lauded Happy Soup, is an intimate confession by a mature and sensitive guy. Maximum results with a minimum of means. “With each listen you’re more and more absorbed by and into his own world,” warns one BBC reviewer.

 

Spectrum

After the disbanding of the cult group Spacemen 3, one of the most important projects in the history of psychedelic rock, Jason Pierce went his own way under the name Spiritualized, while Peter Kember began recording and performing under such names as Sonic Boom, Experimental Audio Research, and Spectrum. The OFF Festival will host that last incarnation. The group’s noisy yet colorful sound and astonishing formal range — from catchy pop tunes to improvised drones — led My Bloody Valentine to choose Spectrum as the perfect support band for their 2009 comeback tour.

 

Container

Ren Schofield has been sparking the interest of astute experts on American underground music since he launched his own label, I Just Live Here, to self-release cassette tapes filled with original, lo-fi electronic music, but it wasn’t until until he came out with an album, simply titled LP (Spectrum Spools), that the whole world took notice. Ren hails from Nashville, but he sounds like a native of Detroit. If Burial’s far-out sounds were a distant echo of rave, then Container offers a similarly detached reminiscence of Detroit techno. It’s hard music to dance to, but it’s easy to forget where and whom you danced with.

 

We also want to announce that for reasons beyond our control, Diamond Rings will not be performing at the August 2 before party. Taking over for Diamond Rings will be Nils Frahm, the Berlin-based composer and producer known for his melancholy, meditative music based on austere piano sounds. True nighttime listening for fans of ambient and contemporary music.

We’d like to remind everyone that tickets and passes are now on sale at the OFF Shop 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.