When in 1991 my classmate Karol Kociszewski handed me a cassette with the album “Kollaps” by EINSTUERZENDE NEUBAUTEN on side A and the album “Dedicated to Peter Kurten” by WHITEHOUSE on side B, he probably didn’t think that the music contained on it would shape my personality, irreversibly changing it.
Today I can say for sure that, in a peculiar way, it was a turning point in my life, which conditioned its further course. I didn’t suspect at all that this is what it would look like…
It was the hot August of 1993. During the festival in Jarocin, somewhere in the crowd of some half a million punks with mohawks on their heads and wearing studded leather jackets, I make out a slim boy with long fair hair, dressed in a denim jacket with an Einstuerzende Neubauten logo patch. I’m shocked. For two years, I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to meet anyone, apart from a few of my classmates, sharing my fascination with this band. I right away run up to him to show him my badge – the Einstuerzende Neubauten logo. This is the beginning of some sort of tribal bond between us that will soon result in something more. The boy is Łukasz Pawlak, who in a few years will start his own record label REQUIEM RECORDS, which successfully continues to operate to this day. A few years later, one of the label’s City Songs compilations will feature the first studio track of my project VILGOĆ, entitled “Found Wounded in Winter Far away from Here”.
But for now, it’s late evening in Jarocin. During the concert played by the band Chłopcy z Placu Broni on the festival’s Large Stage, some members of the audience gathered farthest from the stage start a wild and spontaneous ritual performance using six huge metal rubbish bins brought from somewhere as instruments. (That didn’t escape the attention of the local newspaper’s journalists, who mentioned the spontaneous act in a review of the whole festival) I quickly join in and start dictating the rhythm to the others. I become the shaman of the whole commotion. The thing doesn’t last long, but I already know. I want to do it all my life.
Meanwhile, it’s 1994, I am 20, and everything in Poland is changing. There’s no Internet yet, few people have a landline phone at home, and CD players among my friends are still scarce. It’s then that, enraptured by OBUH RECORDS’ releases, I succeed in getting in touch with Wojciech Czern, which is a beginning of my few year’s relation with him, mainly on the phone. It’s Woycek and OBUH RECORDS, along with a group of musical explorers gathered around him, that in my opinion was the main and probably the first bond that initiated something that more than a decade later would be named the “industrial scene”. In a few years, I’ll be lucky enough to meet two of those few people and spend another dozen or so years with them. For the time being, I’m fascinated by the music of RONGWRONG, KSIĘŻYC, ZA SIÓDMĄ GÓRĄ, and SCHISTOSOMA, but I still feel as if I’m in a different reality. Wrocław becomes the Mecca for crust punk. Nobody’s heard of industrial music here. Here and there, small mentions about this phenomenon begin to appear in the music press.
Everything changes in 1995. Through two magical women: Violka Bobińska and Dorota aka “Dylka”, I meet Maciek Frett. Seeing him wearing a DEATH IN JUNE sweatshirt with BLACKHOUSE and INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE patches, I didn’t expect that the man would soon change the face of Poland’s music avant-garde. Nor did I realise that Wrocław would become the very centre of the current. And although this sounds somewhat lofty, I’m not going to change my standpoint. What’s more, I still think so today.
Everything starts happening faster after my meeting Maciek Frett. New people, common interests, and fascination with every new release. Industrial music fills the whole space of my life.
It’s a June morning, 1996, on which I wake up at Maciek Frett’s place, lying on the carpet after a good party. That’s when I have another experience that changes my approach to music. Fascinated by extreme forms of sound, I was convinced I’d heard everything. I was wrong. That morning, Maciek Frett played the album “Venerology” by MERZBOW to me.
My personal musical universe stood still. Absolutely no one, and nothing, was comparable with what I heard. It was for me a work of art, a wonder, a revolution of consciousness, a timeless discovery. Elevation of music to an unimaginable, transcendent level. I knew that as far as my musical fascinations go, it was the crowning experience. I realised that there’s nothing more than that in music. And that mankind wouldn’t come up with anything more extreme in the area of deforming sounds. The same emotions are with me today every time I listen to this record.
If someone had said to me then that in 11 years’ time I would not only have the opportunity to see MERZBOW live in my home city but also that I would have the opportunity to personally oversee his stay for almost a week, driving him all over Wrocław in my rickety off-road Lada Niva, I would have considered it to be something as absurd and unreal as myself becoming the President of Poland or the body-building world champion. No exaggeration here.
Meanwhile, it’s the hot summer of 1996. It’s August 2. I’m attending the CASTLE PARTY Festival at Grodziec Castle. It’s here that a unique phenomenon takes place – the theatre-like performance of the band called CHRISTBLOOD, reminiscent of a blasphemous and dark ritual. There are goat and cow skulls. There are pieces of altar bread scattered on stage. There’s blood and there’s a procession of masked figures in long robes, having their ritual at the foot of the stage, among the audience. There’s also music that completely engrosses me, reaching the deepest black of my soul. Together with the others, I completely succumb to it and immerse in some sort of unconscious collective trance. There’s yet another mysterious figure among those watching this amazing performance. Our fates will soon cross. For now, it’s about here and now, and I don’t even know how this performance will end. I’d never have thought that in a few years, the creators of the project CHRISTBLOOD would invite me to play my first concert as VILGOĆ at INTERMEDIALE FESTIVAL.
Somewhere nearby, some bands including HEDONE, AGRESSIVA 69, RIGOR MORTIS, and WIELORYB manage to get through to the music mainstream. What they do is where electronic music meets heavy guitar riffs and soon becomes classified as “industrial music”.
Then, 1997 comes – an extremely important year, bringing big changes. It’s May 31, the middle of the day, and I’m going by tram across a desolate Wrocław. This is the day of Pope John Paul II’s visit to the city. I’m going to meet somebody who, like me, is fascinated by MERZBOW. The person I’m meeting is Rafał Kochan, who remembers me from the CHRISTBLOOD concert in Grodno. He greets me wearing a WHITEHOUSE T-shirt, which I immediately start envying him. His impressive knowledge of music and avant-garde art combined with a fascination with extreme means of artistic expression completely enchant me. I was shocked. I found it hard to believe that I’d met a person like this at last. Passionate and uncompromising. This was how our friendship began, a friendship that for years meant hours of telephone calls and few meetings, as well as many records, cassettes, and concerts on video swapped between him and me. It’s a shame that the delicate thread of understanding that connected us hasn’t stood the test of time – it broke and we parted.
Meanwhile, it’s August 1997. The Flood of the Century is passing through Poland. About 75% of Wroclaw is flooded. Some shops, churches, and residential blocks find themselves all underwater. I immediately react to the information provided on the radio that Wrocław’s Zoological Garden is facing the risk of flooding and needs help. It takes me about 40 minutes to reach the zoo. There are only two army units and a group of civilians, including me. There’s nobody more. A heroic burst of effort, Vratislavians’ trying to contain the water overflowing the flood banks in the zoo neighbourhood will only take place in the evening. For now, we and the soldiers are piling sandbags, worried about what the hours to come could bring. In a break from the work, a dozen or more reserve soldiers in undone jackets and boots come up to me. They want to ask me three questions:
– Can you get vodka somewhere here?
– Are there any working girls around here?
– Is this patch on my combat trousers (Psychic TV) a sort of Satanist crucifix?
I answer no to the first two questions, and their interest in this matter vanishes, which comes as no surprise to me.
Later this autumn, I set off to Prague to see EINSTUERZENDE BAUTEN live for the first time. My fascination with the outfit explodes again and never leaves me. This one, however, is a completely different story…
It’s March 3, 1998. I’m sitting in a dirty, cold, and stinking rail carriage and I’m witnessing a little unnecessary, in my opinion, dispute between Rafał Kochan and the train conductor. We’re travelling to attend a concert to be played Poland’s first harsh noise project. The band’s name is GODZILLA and it’s one of the side projects of GENETIC TRANSMISSION’s Tomasz Twardawa. It’ll later turn out that we’re the only ones who have arrived, apart from the band and the sound engineer. The concert left me dumbfounded. With his six synthesizers, Tomasz Twardawa concocted such noise that even the Japanese pioneers of the genre wouldn’t be ashamed of. I felt like I was in a trance. I was hypnotised by the sound. As an afterparty, in the short absence of the sound guy, someone turned on “Inner War” by BRIGHTER DEATH NOW. I was getting back home almost completely deaf.
Meanwhile, in Wrocław, Maciek Frett founded JOB KARMA and when their first album “Cycles per Second” was released a year later, it seemed to me that Maciek had outdistanced us all by light-years. He accomplished what we all had dreamed of. JOB KARMA’s music is original and doesn’t resemble the dark ambient classics that define the canons of industrial music. Its distinctive sound will become a trademark easily recognisable on the outfit’s following albums and in its other projects. 1998 is also special for me in a different respect. That’s when I set up my music project named VILGOĆ. I send the first demo recordings to Rafał Kochan and Tomasz Twardawa. The response is at least enthusiastic. Life and the world around me started gaining momentum…
It’s October 9, 1999. A date I’ll never forget. I’m in Legnica, in the former Prussian barracks. It’s a huge red brick facility, with dust and grease all over the place. Fine droplets of rain are dripping from the leaky roof on the cables and some of the PA equipment. It’s 5:12 p.m., I get on the stage and let off everything that has accumulated in me for years. This is VILGOĆ’s first concert, one the most extreme in my career, according to some people. Rafał Kochan was responsible for its visual side. The concert was organised by Krzysztof Pawlik together with the people involved in the CHRISTBLOOD project as part of the said INTERMEDIALE festival. The first 10 minutes of the recorded concert will, later on, be published on a compilation album documenting the festival.
1999 abounds with interesting events. A series of concerts begins in Wrocław under the motto YOUTHS SIDE WITH MACHINES with Maciek Frett spearheading the initiative. The author of the graphic design is Dorota “Dylka”, who also comes up with JOB KARMA’s first logo when the group starts to perform regularly, becoming increasingly recognisable on the local scene. When I first see their gig at the “Maska” club, enriched with Arek Bagiński’s extraordinary and memorable visual work, I realise the transformation that’s taken place over these few years. JOB KARMA becomes a fully professional music band, whose founders are now making a considerable sacrifice, giving up their entire private and professional lives. Not all of them will stand the test of time…
Meanwhile, Rafał Kochan publishes the first issue of his fanzine entitled THE STETHOSCOPE. The publication comes with an audio cassette. Side A features Tomek Twardawa’s material, recorded under the moniker GODZILLA. Side B is the VILGOĆ project’s first full-size release.
I’m 25. It’s a time of my various reflections and thoughts on my life. I want to summarise and commemorate the most important things that shaped me and made my life meaningful. It wasn’t hard. On my birthday, I have my body decorated with a tattoo – the EINSTUERZENDE BAUTEN logo. I’ve never had regrets about this decision. Now I and Henry Rollins become mates – hope you get the joke here…
It’s 2000. I’m working at one of Wrocław’s EMPIK media stores. It’s a summer holiday season. I’m sitting at a cash register, and nothing’s going on. A giant young man with a clean-shaven head suddenly enters the store. He’s wearing a Polish Army uniform and a CHRIST AGONY T-shirt. Of course, he’s heading towards me. He’s Michał Śmigiel, known better as “Śmigło” (the Polish word for “propeller”). He engages me in a conversation. He has unusual ideas, which I then consider infeasible. He wants to organise a concert and invite me to play. He’s also seriously thinking about releasing a limited series of records with non-standard covers. I hadn’t expected at that time that everything he said would soon translate into reality. That’s how I met a new unique personality, one that I’m still in touch with. I wouldn’t have believed then if someone had said to me that in the following 20 years, the man would organise concerts in the most unreal places and situations, with me participating, such as a refrigerated lorry trailer, an abandoned VHS tape factory in an unknown to me location in Ireland, a scouts’ hostel in the middle of a forest, an attic in one of Dublin’s pubs, and many other ones. It’s Śmigło who for all these years will have the dogged determination to regularly organise various free-of-charge series of events called WITHOUT CONTROL, TEMPLE OF SILENCE, and DEFIBRILLATOR FESTIVAL, thus making his undeniable and lasting contribution to the development of industrial music in this country. At least in my humble opinion…
It’s 2001. That’s the year when the first edition of WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL takes place. Its organisers don’t yet suspect how much this event will determine their future lives. This is a modest beginning of something that will open up a new chapter in the development of industrial music not only in Poland but throughout Eastern Europe. The line-up and attendance at the festival’s each subsequent edition have shown that these words aren’t exaggerated or too bold.
Bands associated with industrial music are becoming increasingly recognisable. A new community, attracting people open to unusual sounds, is gradually being formed. Krzysztof Lanzberg and a group of enthusiasts from TV Wrocław produce a reportage series entitled “Fine Dress” that documents various faces of Wrocław’s avant-garde. Separate episodes of this endeavour are dedicated to JOB KARMA and VILGOĆ. I’d never have expected that 8 years later I would again have the opportunity to meet these outstanding people. However, the circumstances will be completely different. We’ll be interviewing Genesis P-Orridge. Here, in Poland. In Wrocław. It’s science fiction. That’s what I’d have thought then.
It’s 2002 and everything freezes in me. Due to two cases of an incurable disease in my immediate family, my whole universe gets sucked out, just as if it was engulfed in a black hole. Nothing is real around me anymore. Everything I considered important in my life becomes trivial. This is how I fall into a fog, into a vacuum, into a void that will be with me for the coming four years. I miss out on a few editions of WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL. I lose interest in everything I didn’t imagine my life without just a few years before…
It’s 2006 now. I’m at the music club “Firlej”, which I guess is known to everybody. The room is packed with people. In a moment, I’m going on the stage to play my concert. This time as a supporting act before KREW Z KONTAKTU and KYLIE MINOISE. I was certain that I’d seen everything as far as extreme areas of industrial music go. And that such extreme performances were a thing of the past, a relic of the ’90s. I was wrong. This time it was complete destruction. I’d never experienced such expressive, self-destructive, and aurally extreme projects. An absolute revelation. A few months later, during a short tour with the KREW Z KONTAKTU guys, I meet Wojciech Zięba, founder of the record label BEAST OF PREY and co-founder of projects such as KREPULEC and VOICES OF THE COSMOS, who then publishes three more releases by VILGOĆ. I’ll never forget the impression he made on me when I saw him for the first time: 20-eye combat boots, mohawk and blonde, waist-reaching dreadlocks, face pierced in some places, and a uniform. How innocent were the 1990s.
It’s 2006 and the world around me is completely different. Old acquaintances have become diluted by the prosaic day-to-day life. Thanks to labels including SERPENT, WROTYCZ, ZOHARUM, BEAST OF PREY, or shortly before FLUTTERING DRAGON, industrial music is already known and generally available. There are new regular recurring events dedicated to industrial music. People I met in the past, such as Dariusz Misiuna, Krzysztof Azarewicz, Rafał Księżyk, Daniel Brążek, Rafał Kochan, and Maciej Ożóg, are fully recognizable and deservedly become authorities on the subject of industrial music, which is now broadly discussed. But there’s something else. Something that saddens me. The only way to interact with this whole phenomenon is, mostly, the virtual world. Everything moves to a variety of online forums and begins to develop there. This is when Rafał Kochan (aka Glaukos), due to his uncompromising standpoint on art and music, as well as his devotion and nonconformity, becomes a proverbial black sheep. I can’t understand these disputes. Glaukos’s perspective is the one that most closely matches mine. Having said that, I can’t relate to his vulgar way of expressing himself. I wonder how the person I was a witness to at his wedding in the registry office may be now completely strange to me. It’s deeply depressing. After all, we used to have so much in common… I have respect for Rafał to this day. Maybe we’ll be able to get together someday.
It’s 2007, which in my life will mark the beginning of a smooth transition to 2020. It’s at that time that Maciek Frett proposes to me that I join the Wrocław Industrial Festival CREW. I don’t think either he or I suspected at that time that this decision would start another chapter in my life, one which is now an inseparable part of my everyday activity. Helping with WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL was to become part of my DNA. From now on, every year, every edition was to provide me with experiences, events, and memories unlike anything else. All thanks to the people involved in the festival. This is certainly a topic big enough for a separate book. Somewhere around this period, Rafał Kochan starts a painstaking undertaking, which will be crowned by the publication of his ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF INDUSTRIAL MUSIC. Also, more or less during this time, he starts his label IMPULSY STETOSKOPU. Nothing is like it used to be before.
It’s a cloudy November morning, 2009. I’m at 1 Purkyniego St. in Wrocław, standing at the door to the security room and pounding hard on it. I have to wake up the security guy. Genesis P-Orridge and the rest of his band have been here, at the Gothic Hall, for about fifteen minutes now. He asks for a cup of coffee showing politeness worthy of an English gentleman. I’m devastated. There’s nobody in the building but me. The backstage is completely empty. There’s nothing. So, I’m standing there and hammering on the door to the security lodge. Finally, someone opens the door and I try to express my request to make coffee. At this point, it’s a matter of life or death. A muddle-headed security officer is trying to help me. We manage to find two plastic cups and instant coffee, very tellingly branded Premium Gold, to which I add some leftover sugar with a dubious sell-by date. The instant coffee cream – no surprise here – resembles gypsum, and I am rushing down the stairs to fulfil Genesis’s request as quickly as I can. I realise that what I have to offer may very likely fail to meet his expectations. I’m anxious. This small incident could affect Psychic TV’s whole concert, not to mention that it could a disaster for the festival image-wise. My hands are trembling as I give the coffee to Genesis with an inscrutable expression, awaiting his response. It’s worse than I thought. Genesis finishes his coffee and asks me for another cup, appreciating the intensity of the one he’s just had…
A few hours later, entirely by chance, I will have an opportunity to interview him. Everything is recorded by Krzysztof Lanzberg and his crew. It’s worth mentioning, however, that this hasn’t been the first situation of this kind. The renowned Wrocław television reporter, journalist and feature writer Andrzej Jóźwik has for years been supporting WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL by documenting it, making feature programmes dedicated to it, and publishing reports from each of its editions. It seems to me that everything is on a “macro” scale now. Industrial music is no longer a niche or something offbeat and hermetic. A few years pass.
I could tell many stories like this. Each edition of the festival abounds with them. I find many of them hard to believe despite my personal involvement.
However, it’s 2009, and I accidentally find myself on the online forum Harsh Noise.Pl, which soon turns out to be a genuine talent pool. It’s a new and creative generation of harsh noise aficionados, one that will soon give birth to loads of amazing releases. This time, everything sounds different. Better and more professional. Over the years, new projects emerge, e.g. THE SLEEP SESSIONS, JESUS IS A NOISE COMMANDER, IRON LUNG, TRAUMA UNIT, SELYMES VIRASZIGROM, I AM A SLUT, HANDSOME HEARTBREAKERS, REZ-EPO, PURGIST, SZNUR, and a few less-known ones. Industrial music in Poland assumes a new dimension. I’ll have the opportunity to see some of the above projects live, also as an attendee of the concert series NOISE DEVASTATION or PRZESTEROWANE SZCZURY (Polish for “overdriven rats”).
More years pass, and more editions of WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL are held. I’m coming to realise that I’ve finally met people who are sometimes closer to me than my family. These few days every year seem to be so unreal.
It’s 2015 now. 4 a.m. I’m somewhere in Upper Silesia. I find myself with and a few nutcases carrying PA equipment on a muddy, slippery path leading us to the top of a nearby slag heap. We must get there before the sun rises. It’s horribly cold and dark. The whole project is headed by Radosław Sirko, and I’m supposed to play a concert to be recorded and then presented as part of an extremely poetic document under the intriguing title “REVERBERATION”. I can’t believe it’s really happening…
Again, everything is speeding up. New faces, new acquaintances, and new projects appear, some of which quickly evaporate and give room to other ones. The world around me is undergoing further transformations. The world inside me starts withdrawing, as it were, running away to the past… Priorities, responsibilities, and commitments are changing. A few years ago, I turned 40, which is rather irrelevant to me. I feel as though the whole world rushed somewhere ahead and I was left alone again. Thankfully, I’m accompanied by one thing which, despite the passing of all these years, hasn’t changed whatsoever. It’s my fascination with the same music – music that’s still present in my life…
It’s October 28, 2020. The time on my watch is3: 5 a.m. Behind the windows, the world is involved in an uneven battle, struggling with COVID -19. The coming edition of WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL – for the first time in its history – will be held mainly in virtual space. I’m holding the same audio cassette which completely changed life 29 years ago. The memories I recall don’t let me fall asleep. Have so many things really changed? Does the world look different now? Is this the beginning of another change? These are questions that encourage further reflection or perhaps even inspire answers. At this moment, however, they are completely outside my area of interest. I put the cassette in the player to relive the whole experience. It’s officially 2020, but for me, 1991 has started again. I’ll spend some time here…
Sebastian Harmazy (Vilgoć)