X Wrocław Industrial Festival

GS is Grzegorz Siedlecki, better known as the man behind Polish industrial project Horologium, and also formerly a member of Krepulec and Totenhaus. He is also the founder and leader of Ur Muzik Label and independent journalist in his spare time. In 2006 Italian label Ars Benevola Mater issued his album Metafizyka. Music of GS can be described as metaphisical ambient combining titual and industrial aspect of the genre. Drones and ritualistic rhythms are merged with postindustrial, mechanical sound. On the field of non-musical inspirations of GS project we can find classic metaphysics of Aristotle, occultism and 20th century existentialism.

Minamata disease is a syndrome caused by methylmercury poisoning. It was first discovered in Japan in the eponymous city in 1956. Symptoms include dysmotility, paresthesia in the extremities, weakened vision and hearing, and in severe cases - paralysis and impaired consciousness, ending with a fatal outcome. The cause of the disease served as the company Chisso extended release of toxic liquid wastes in the water Minamata Bay. This toxic substance contained mercury that benthic organisms in its metabolism transformed into methylmercury. The history of this disease is largely metaphorical and characterizes all of the state of contemporary socio-economic system. Like many man-made disasters, Minamata disease was ignored for a long time – until today. Trying to draw attention to this problem, a French musician and videoartist Philip Escartin released the first album of his project called Minamata in 1984, a kind of symbol of the absurdity and outrageous indifference prevailing in the relations between industry, nature and society. Minamata appeared in the mid 80's and performed as a trio for a few years. At the time of radical and provocative it could compete only Le Syndicat. But then the creator of the group dismissed the remaining members and continued to record music in solitude under the name La Nomenklatur. Some records Minamata and La Nomenklatur he published on his own label, Les Nouvelles Propagandes.  in 2002 Tiburce decided to resurrect his old project. In 2008 the label Nuit & Brouillard released CD Niigata – reprint of the third tape recorded and released in 1985 – perhaps the most powerful of all the material heritage of Minamata, old school industrial with a large metal percussion and a wild roar of distorted voices instead of singing. Year 2009 witnessed premiere of CD/DVD called Cyclator - Cyclator was a structure, supposedly invented to purify water in Minamata Bay. After long conversations and assurances by the Government found that it was just another bluff. The number of victims of environmental disasters is growing every day – Minamata is trying to expose that using radical esthetics – power-electronics of the old school – rebellious, uncompromising, brutal and aggressive.

Sound and vocal duo of the mysterious name 11 is a unique phenomenon on the grounds of Polish experimental music. It is hard to even call this formation a “band” - it is rather a form of musical and verbal play, set up by the responsible for the composition, sound architecture and production Pawel Cieslak (known from various groups such as Fonovel, Blisko Pola, Almost Dead Celebrities or TRYP to name just a few) and author of lyrics and vocal passages – Marcin Pryt (19 Wiosen, TRYP). Their only album up to date, Gettokosmos, is intended to be an experiment, the creation of an universe where they can easily propagate the ideas of cosmic liberation and the area for transmitting informations from parallel worlds. If listeners of this material will reflect for a moment the status of the human-ghetto prisoners, the “cosmic ghetto” and feel empathy with the characters of short stories from the disc, the objective of the authors can be considered as achieved. Surrealistic stories are accompanied by music definitely referring to the industrial tradition, but presented in a distinctive, modernized and very original way. Analog and digital sounds are combined, melody collides with noise, drastically sound-reverbed melodaclamations are backgrounded with noise passages. Raw energy and originality – this is the easiest way to describe this project in one sentence.

Organics meets electronics in a clash of two radically different musical formations. The united forces of Sieben (UK) and Job Karma (PL) come to fruition as a new, unique project called 7JK. After a series of concerts together over the years, this unusual sonic collaboration is finally happening – Sieben, neo-classical, based on acoustic instruments, and electronic, post-industrial Job Karma finally write new material together. This is the sum of these musician's experiences. Matt Howden, Maciej Frett and Aureliusz Pisarzewski create a universe of sounds, a rhythmic unison of synthesisers and generators, violin and voice. The result – a soundtrack for a movie yet to be made, merging many aesthetics and genres: Neofolk collides with industrial, electronics with krautrock, ambient with classical music.

Clock DVA's music of the late 80s and early 90s remains indestructible matrix,  which served as a point of reference for that time's rising techno or the full-fledged electro-industrial EBM scene. Precise beat of CDVA imprinted the precursors of the Berlin and Frankfurt minimalist tech-minimal, and it stayed present in its further evolutions. CDVA has roots in Sheffield in North England – the birthplace of the classics, like Cabaret Voltaire, Hula, In The Nursery or Human League.  CDVA began in times of the punk revolution which validated every experiment, linked materials and emancipation of any artistic work. From the beginning, the brain of Clock DVA has been Adi Newton – an individual, for whom any limits of pop culture or avantgarde are unknown.  Clock DVA debuted in 1980 with the album White Souls in Black Suits, released by Industrial Records, belonging to Throbbing Gristle. Their music was a complete antithesis of what could have seemed to be an “industrial stereotype”. However, the only thing that industrial and Clock DVA had in common was experimental flair, psychedelic sound, using loops, the so-called white noise and electronics. With the mature form of “syncopated”, jazz-electronic DVA we can deal on the 80s' albums, Thirst and Advantage, which cleverly linked funky pos tpunk, new wave with death disco. Clock DVA later evolved from experimental anti-pop post punk and dark quasi-jazz,  to purely electronic sounds of the albums released in the second part of the decade, such as Buried Dreams, Man-Amplified or Sign, which will be the cornerstone of their concert in Wroclaw. The manifest-track entitled The Hacker had been released many years (in 1988) before its online revolution. Futuristic work of CDVA enriched electronic music with interests of XX-century art, especially the idea of man-machine and constructivist demands of linking  the man and technology. The audiovisual concept of Clock DVA always means transmission of information. Their realisations  supported with well-researched works, bring thoughts of Tatlin, Lissitzky or Duchamp, they expose counter-cultural, hermetic literature, paranormal phenomena. From Lautreamont to surrealism, occultism and magic. The hypnotic, postindustrial music of CDVA is a reflection of the relation: a single man vs technology, it depicts extraterrestial drive towards the unknown, fascination by the cosmos and its exploration, it contains both: the experiment and bounciness, and this is exactly what their set in the Gothic Hall is going to be like.

Wiktor Skok - this name come to mind when you’re thinking: „Lodz’s underground”. Still present since the 80’s. Witnessed the decline of city's industry he became a true Stakhanov of bruitist music. Promoting numbers of D.I.Y. industrial electro parties, inviting bands and artists from abroad, organising punk shows in bunkers, warehouses tunnels and old factories he became one of the most active scensters of Poland’s underground. He promote machine culture and esthetics from the year zero. His discoteca output differs from pounding strong industrial beat, rhythm’n’noise, EBM just to electro punk and sweet ultra danceable electroclash. A great admirator of Expressionism and Film Noir, his musical tastes go from SPK, Esplendor Geometrico and Slogun by Front Line Assembly to John Foxx or Adult. Besides he is the singer of the most (in)famous polish industrial band Jude, publish his own zine Plus Ultra and try to make a living writing articles and revievs to some mags and actively DJing around. An explosive in an urban decay. 

Fjernlys can't be described as a typical representative of Loki Foundation Label. It is not just dark ambient. The project was founded by Knut Enderlein from Inade and Ex.order. Debut album of the band contains ten great and endless epic tracks to reach far beyond trepidation and tranquillity, it's not only welcoming with open arms but captivating slowly the listener and remaining breathless till the last sound. Beyond The Undulant Quiescence unifies the opposites when the frostiness of the synthesizer sound and the warmth of the melodies are melting one another. The spectrum ranges from melancholic piano compositions to complex and superior songstructures with an open commitment to slow motion. In every track there is this cryptical sparkling which is always shimmering but it almost stays in the background. It's the multilayered arrangement in each track which is constantly changing the colours and feature an cineastic coarseness in an audible way.

An audio-visual project from Poznan, oscillating around the edge of free improvisation, noise and industrial music. In Kakofonikt's world the sound becomes the crossing point of experience, an interface of the mind and stream of thoughts. Their public shows have a form of performances, involving different types of media. The instrumentarium includes i.a. metal waste, broken electronic devices, toy- and specially contructed instruments, everyday objects, acoustic waves oscillators. The pieces are composed with the use of field recordings and concrete sounds. The declared aim of Kakofonikt is the calibration of the listener's perception into an altered state of consciousness level  and creating an audio-sonic environment for sensual and mental experiences.

Between 1982 & 2002 Peter Hope plied his trade as uncompromising & inventive vocalist & musician with Sheffield’s Industrial Avant-Garde & Experimental Post Punk Sonic Steelworkers. Crossing genres from the rapid-fire post punk squall of The Box to the unleashing of Richard H. Kirk’s Heaviest Hour with Hoodoo Talk, then the Classic avant-garde document of social, domestic & industrial collapse that is Dry Hip Rotation & the Warped Blues sample manipulations of Flex 13 with chief collaborator & unflinching left-field Legend Charlie Collins.

Think of a bard who sings not of the old gods, goddesses and heroes, but of dreary canals, murdered husbands, needles, knives and fatal workplace accidents. After 20 years & over 30 releases Hope severed all connections & moved to the Outer Hebrides to pit himself against the world’s oldest rock and the elements that shape it.

The Exploding Mind manifests in many shapes. It drawers both from the past and the present, and as such exist in a state of constantly shifting energy. The Exploding Mind is not reliant on Trend, Time or Genre. It exists as an ever changing document of what has already been created and what is currently being created. Every act of creativity needs inspiration from either internal or external sources and I have been lucky enough to work with some exceptionally inspirational people. In turn The aim of The Exploding Mind is to act as an inspiration for wider creativity, collaboration and passion for power of music.

Matt Howden is an English violinist that uses his own name for his solo neo-classical work, to separate it from his song-based material, which goes under the name of Sieben. Sieben is the one of the many projects of the musical artist Matt Howden. He has worked as producer, songwriter, session musician, and score composer. He currently lives in Sheffield, UK. Whilst Sieben is his most well known creation, he has been a collaborator with The Raindogs (Portugal), Sol Invictus (UK), Tony Wakeford (UK), L’Orchestra Noir (UK), L’Ame Immortelle (AT), Emilie Autumn (USA), Faith & The Muse (USA), Of The Wand And The Moon (DK), Larsen (IT), Chris Eckman (USA), Spiritual Front (IT), Shock Headed Peters (UK), Hekate (DE), Job Karma (PL), The Mystery School (USA) HaWthorn (UK) and many others. He releases neoclassical music under his own name.

Matt’s main instrument is violin and he is entirely self-taught. The story goes that, at 18, he was given a friend’s grandfather’s violin and then alienated friends and family over a two year period, finally unleashing himself upon an unsuspecting public in the streets of Newark, Lincoln and Grantham. He moved to Sheffield in 1986 and was part of the vibrant music scene in Sheffield playing in The Glass Hammers, Pig64, Yonni, and Stiki.

Sieben exists because of the I-Ching. Matt was given a reading by a friend which told him to make music he wanted to, not the music he thought people would like. This led to Matt throwing himself into a fully solo career, which indulged and channelled his fantasy and passion into violin and voice.

The premise and spirit of Sieben is layers – layers of instrument and voice that hypnotically draws you into a world of emotion. Lyrically, the themes shift and change from album to album, but are linked by the same sense of dissonance – the smooth, superficially melodious voice belies the dark, quick, twisted stories. Intelligent, quirky use of metaphor and archaic language is set against a backdrop of texture rich music.

The central place of the violin and Howden’s unusual way of playing it give’s Sieben a distinct sound which makes comparison difficult. Whilst, Sieben is frequently classified as neofolk, goth & experimental the music, and the man, could be as well described as alternative, indie, beautiful, brilliant, melancholy freak folk…the list goes on

DISCOGRAPHY: Matt has played over 1,800 shows, 35+ countries across the world, played with many artists on various scenes, made music for film and television, released 18 studio albums (and a 10CD boxset) to date.

The idea of The Anti-Group Communications is the effect of unrestrained artistic instinct of Adi Newton, spiritus movens of the legendary Clock DVA. Versatility and musical knowledge started to split the frames of his best-known band. The plan of this project was to concentrate artists and theoreticians from different communities, realising subsequent, single projects as a multimedia collective. T.A.G.C. was supposed to be a sort of active platform, an interdisciplinary unit specialising in art and research, a fluctuating organisation grouping musicians, visual artists, film-makers, etc. documenting their experiments under the name T.A.G.C. The open organism of T.A.G.C. included an experiment, excluding any limits. As in Adi Newton's most works, also all performances by T.A.G.C. are accompanied with broad theoretical research, effects of which are released by Anterior Research Recordings. Academic descriptions touch the subjects of aural experiments, psychoacoustics, experiences with psychoactive frequencies of sound. From sound stimulation of the brain activity, through testing the role of frequency and rhythm used in voodoo rituals. From evoking hermetic ideas from the past to penetration of the concealed experiments of contemporary military laboratories. Reaching directly for audio documents of T.A.G.C. We receive the music surprising with diversity. Unpredictable products of T.A.G.C. contain contemplative pieces, reaching the limits of the Universe, quasi free jazz, spheric and ethnic  music; no wave, electroacustic ritual music and hits which would do well on industrial dancefloor. It remains unknown what kind of set T.A.G.C. is going to present at WIF 2018.

Thorofon, German industrial/power-electronics project, was founded by Daniel Hofmann (known also as Anton Knilpert) in 1995 with support of charismatic vocalist Geneviève Pasquier. The project stood in the artistic and musicial tradition of Throbbing Gristle and SPK, but soon developed an own easy-to-recognize style. Their prolific career in the international post-industrial scene began with Maximum Punishment Solutions back in 1997. With Anton Knilpert & Geneviève Pasquier being the coremembers of Thorofon, they worked regularly with guests musicians like Julius Gospodard & Tikki Nagual amongst others. Thorofon transformed into The Musick Wreckers at the end of 2005 while Knilpert changed his artist name into Dan Courtman. Thorofon reformed in late 2010.