XXIII WROCŁAW INDUSTRIAL FESTIVAL

Blac Kolor is a music project by long time DJ, promoter and graphic designer Hendrick Grothe from Leipzig. Coming from the wild eastern electronic body music scene in Germany in the early 90s, he continuously developed & pushed the boundaries in an open-minded way that many partygoers seemed not prepared for. On the producer’s side he consequently figured there is some space to be filled with a new musical narrative: banging rhythms for a dark world of windowless basements - the typical BK sound. First Blac Kolor started out with his friends Daniel Myer & DSX known as Haujobb and his mate Square7 to introduce a cold techno induced night called "FROST". They rinsed the merciless b-sides of their favourite producers to a mesmerizing video installation by Robben Bollocks. Guests of their choice were: Paul Kendall (Mute), Cute Heels (Black Leather Rec), cEvin Key (Skinny Puppy) and so on. In January 2013 they released the first "FROST EP" from Basic Unit Production. Soon followed by Blac Kolor’s first proper release, the "RANGE EP", which featured a nightmarish, and zombie-esque vision of techno. With successor single "KOLD" Blac Kolor’s sound developed towards rough breaks, marching snares & lots of uneasy vibes but nonetheless a groove at his black and rotten heart. 2014 was then the year of his debut full length „Wide Noise“ followed by „Born In Ruins“ in 2016 (both on BUP) and the 3rd album „Awakening“ on infamous HANDS label, where he even collaborated with Front 242’s very own Jean-Luc De Meyer. Soon followed several 12 inches EPs and the 4th album on splendid Aufnahme+Wiedergabe plus some heavy bangers on the legendary Ant-Zen label. His 5th full length concept album „Weltenbrand“ saw the light of day also via legendary Ant-Zen in September 2023, collaborating with respected artists as Panter Noise, Jennifer Touch, Donis (from the legends of Think About Mutation) and Berlin’s upcoming hero XTR Human.

Dj Blackdeath1334 (Francesca)starts her career in the Gothic/Industrial music scene in Sardinia by organising "Into the darkness", a series of successful live music events .In 1995 she moves to London and in 1996 she starts her djing career at the club Slimelight where she still play as resident dj. Over the years Dj Blackdeath1334 has been invited to play at numerous events & clubs including: Club Underworld (Athens), Wave-Gotik treffen( Leizig), Gotham Festival(Amsterdam), Tower Transmissions (Dresden) ,Infest (Bradford,Uk), Ritual (Rome), 666 (Vienna), Rosa Decidua (London),Kaparte Promotions (London), ILL FM(London),Noise Corruption (London), Kaos Theory (London), Nemesis(London) and different Hinomeuma events(London).
For years now, she has also been the resident dj in events organised by Cold Spring Records in London.
Playing a wide range of music from Power Electronics,to Industrial, Dark Ambient,Martial,Neo-Folk,Rhythmic Noise,Old School EBM,Experimental,Electro,Minimal Wave, Dj Blackdeath1334 has created a rare following in the Gothic and Industrial scene.

Lena had the chance to play for a wide audience for the first time in 2018 at the DOM club in Łódź. Over the course of five years, she has played in several clubs and events in Poland and alongside such artists as Ayarcana, Qual, Unhuman and Rosa Anschütz. For more than a year she has been also running the broadcast "Industrial Blast" on Radio Kapitał, where she record sets with all diverse electronic genres she enjoy. On her sets Lena plays dark and raw sounds. She is mostly fascinated by the music of the 80’s/90’s connected to the classic sounds of EBM, electro and techno mixing it with industrial music and sounds inspired by coldwave.

Escape From Warsaw is a solo project by Karol Suka, who has been exploring the electronic underground at the intersection of punk-rave-industrial subcultures for three decades. Creator of the experimental electronic project Arkona [1995-2013], its later continuation under the name Escape From Warsaw [from 2013] and the electro punk Street City Nomads [2006-2013]. These projects have released 12 albums on their own Sandoz Lab label, as well as on Zoharum, Cpt.Sparky, Zgniłe Mięso, Saturator Label and others. The second one has not been released . The latest EFW publication "The Specter of war" will soon be released by Zoharum. 

The Wyraj [‘vi-ray] project harks back to old Slavic mythological motifs describing the sacred effects of entheogens - psychoactive substances, which are understood as a source of a constitutive religious experience. This Slavic thinking about holiness as unity with nature being an interface of the self was confronted with a set of gestures and formulas for the celebration of holiness developed on the basis of Christianity (along with a whole set of infra-quotations from Medieval and early Baroque church music). Christianity, through the remains of the Slavic culture's spirituality poking out of it, has digested itself like a serpent.

Polish Christian culture has always been a hybrid, resonating with never rounded, mutilating edges of bodily experience of the sacrum, magical practices, and semantic networks beyond the truths of Scripture.

On the album we focus on portraying the spiritual exhaustion of the present day, where the group becomes a participant in a new speculative movement, breaking out of a strongly institutionalized distribution of metaphysical knowledge and saturated with the symbolism of rituals.
Psychonauts - new believers - seek this zone from before the transformation, a body of authentic experiences to which they sigh in unbearable longing.
Incorporation of the oldest sources of Polish national identity can occur in many different ways, not only those appropriated by nationalistic narratives.

Slavic psychedelics hold a strong and still relevant potential for practical spirituality, which we cultivate through transgressive and escapist, modern technologies, in often compulsive acts devoid of a philosophical framework.

The songs in Wyraj attempt to capture this audio-vision of the bizarre mystery of our times on the brink of disaster, among the growing fears and anxieties of the still uncatalyzed excess and emptiness of the new system of values, not updated to our times and situation.

So we move to romantically stale marshes, dance and sing on wet stubble, in the vapour of smog, stimulated by the current-fed loudspeakers and the beating of the drums accompanied by the intoxicating noise of the waste of the culture of excess.

WORLD PREMIERE SHOW!

Nordic pop diva KARIN PARK of ÅRABROT adds her ethereal, mournful voice and keys to the primordial sound of legendary electronic pioneer LUSTMORD for this sublime and poignant collaboration. ALTER is a ritual of our times.

On the pair’s frst collaborative work, the nine tracks that make up ALTER are every bit as heart-wrenching as they are terrifying, mining new sonic territory, it is a fascinating study of light and shade that delves deep into vast uncharted darkness. Their ability to create atmosphere on the album opener “Hiraeth” is second to none, perfectly assembling a harrowing backdrop for Park’s lilting sound of longing. From there, Park’s vocals add all of the

emotional depth and power found in names like Kate Bush, Maynard J Keenan and Elizabeth Frasier, perfectly playing against Lustmord’s waves of dark drama and creating a wholly unique record that recalls Dead Can Dance, Massive Attack and Portishead at their greatest.

Considering Park’s credentials, it might be surprising that a collaboration with Lustmord would ft so seamlessly. Utilizing a sound comprised of elements of industrial, synth pop and more, the celebrated Swedish solo artist and member of Norwegian rock band Årabrot utilizes experimentation in her work, blazing trails and bringing to mind the work of her peers The Knife, Scott Walker, Robyn, Depeche Mode and Burial with her darkly-rich compositions. Multiple winner of Norway’s Spellemann award, Park co-wrote the Norwegian entry for the 2013 Eurovision, fnishing fourth overall. But it is the sensibility of the sacred music of her youth that Park adds to ALTER, contributing a powerful vocal that guides the listener through the cavernous, mystical depth of their collaborative work.

”Lustmord is the Gustave Doré of music“, Karin Park ofers pensively. “Painting magical pictures with a sound that is so vast, it gives space for your own imagination.”

Brian Williams grew up in North Wales, beginning his musical career as Lustmord in 1980 and becoming a pivotal fIgure and pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK. A former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, Williams went on to work with Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey and appeared on early albums by Current 93 and Nurse With Wound amongst others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed, as well as on several video game, television scores and solo albums. Williams has also contributed to and collaborated with artists as varied as the Melvins, Clock DVA, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Clock DVA, Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream), Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit), Puscifer and more, including Grammy Award-winners Tool from their much acclaimed eforts 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum.

Researcher, sound artist, curator, dj and theorist of culture.

Since the early nineties he’s been involved in experimental music scene of Poland. The founder of many bands (Spear, Ben Zen, Aural Treat, Sub Spa, Quantum Vacuum Oscillator, Nonstate, Moist Hardware). He works in the field of sound art, performance, interactive installations and video art. In his solo performances he critically explores limial territory between physical activity of the body and invisible electromagnetic infrastructure of the hybrid space. He uses custom designed sound devices as well as digital and analogue electronics. In 2024, his next solo album entitled "Unheimliche Symmetrie" (Requiem Records) will be released, as well as a series of 10 albums entitled "Live_Matter" with concert recordings from recent years (Wrocław Industrial Festiwal 2020, Sanatorium of Sound Sokołowsko 2023, Digital Art Festival/Conference Gdańsk 2022, Zine Fest Łódź 2023, as well as gigs from Nantes 2018, Tokyo 2018, Chicago 2019, Berlin 2019, London 2019 and Riga 2018) released by the newly opened Łódź label Alt.Tru, which he runs together with the duo Distort Visual (alttru.bandcamp.com).
Curator and organiser of L’tronica Festival for Electronic Music and Art. Curator of Perform_Tech program at Art Factory in Łódź. Curator and co-curator of numerous events such as (i.a.): four editions of the exhibition "Die Kunst Ist Toth", concerts by Coil, Noise Makers Fifes, Column One, Troum, Xaviere Charles, Z’ev, Zbigniew Karkowski, Aube, Tetsuo Furudate, Asmus Tietchens, Kasper T. Toeplitz, Marco Donnarumma, Ryan Jordan, Gil Kuno and many others. Between 1998-2002 he ran a record label Ignis Project dedicated to electronic and electroacoustic music. Ignis released records by: Francisco Lopez, Ultra Milkmaids, Vance Orchestra, Indra Karmuka, Crawl Unit, Origami Arktika, Chaos As Shelter, EA and Spear. Associate professor at the Institute of Contemporary Culture, Department of New Media and Digital Culture, University of Łódź (Poland). His academic research focuses on interactive art, tactical media, bio art, network society, surveillance studies and posthumanism. He has published a number of articles on aesthetics of interactive art, history and theory of avant-garde film, video art and experimental music. His book Life in a silicon cage. New Media Art. as a Critical Analysis of Digital Surveillance (in polish) was published in 2018 by Lodz University Press.

Pale, hailing from Jönköping/Gothenburg and consists of Håkan Paulsson, Emma Ekered, Ehristina Blom, and Joakim Engström, who have been shaping the northern industrial scene for decades, particularly through their cult band Sanctum. their live shows are characterized by aggressive rhythms, a provocative wall of sound, and charismatic vocals that scream out hymns of noise, reaching the ultimate level of intensity. Pale have raised quite some attention with the "beyond the pale" ep in 2023, a very unique blend of power electronics and noise industrial elements, eerie atmospheric undercurrents, and lyrics delivered in a jarring growl. the result is confident, authentic, and profoundly dark.

Riotmiloo's musical roots come from riotgrrrl's screams and protest. Lead singer of the London garage punk band Venom Seeds (2003-2008), she was noticed by magazines for her intense stage presence.

Eager to explore different musical genres, Riotmiloo collaborated with numerous electronic/industrial artists before releasing her first album, "La Pierre Soudée", on ant-zen in 2015, creating an emotional journey ranging from dark ambient soundscapes to crushing rhythms and noise.

In 2022, she released an audiovisual live on DVD featuring the photographic work of Jessica Hosman, "Riotmiloo Live at Iklectik", exploring oppressive and alienating atmospheres with added stroboscopic effects.

 In 2023, she released her second album, "Blackout", on ant-zen, creating a visceral sonic depiction of various states of internal turmoil while aiming to dismantle the barriers between normality and madness. Weaving a web of suffocating beats and extensive use of analogue synths, she paints a sombre electro mood with a splash of angst-pop. 

Using industrial electronics, she creates a cathartic and hypnotic experience, often described as powerful and moving. Riotmiloo has performed in European and UK festivals such as Infest, Elektroanschlag, Bruital Furore, as well as Audiotrauma and Maschinenfest for Eva|3. She has also supported Author and Punisher and Lingua Ignota.

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.

For over 40 years Sutcliffe Jugend have pushed the boundaries of experimental music, their reputation and music speaks for itself. Kevin Tomkins and Paul Taylor now known as Sutcliffe No More or SNM continue to challenge and surprise the listener. Pioneers of a genre Sutcliffe No More’s ‘Live Actions’ have taken place all over the world and continue to be brutal, shocking and challenging. Master’s of their art, Sutcliffe No More are a must listen to and see.

Years of Denial is the project of French musician Jerome Tcherneyan, in former times drummer of cult British band Piano Magic and music producer since 1997, and Czech performance & music artist, songwriter, and poet Barkosina Hanusova. Active since 2016, the duo has become known across the globe for their well-crafted sharp productions and electrifying live performances. Utilizing hardware and a plethora of dub devices combined with Barkosina’s unmistakable vocals, the pair revisit the dark corners of post-punk, goth, new beat, EBM, industrial, and rave culture. Their live shows inject rhythmic beats and pulsating arpeggios with heavy electronics fused with a spacey psychedelic sonic treatment. The duo operates on the dance floor with a powerful performative representation creating an excursive, unforgettable experience. Well known for their fruitful discography, much of which is created inside the infamous Ark of Noise studios, the project's prolific output includes a variety of releases on Death & Leisure, Pinkman, and Khemia, to name a few, not to mention the front-runner 2xLP Suicide Disco (Veyl 2019), an extraordinary offering that set fire to dance floors everywhere and is also the name the duo coined to describe their sound. The release spawned a massive remix EP featuring reworks from Silent Servant, Orphx, Broken English Club and Alexey Volkov. In 2023 YOD released Suicide Disco II (Veyl), a triumphant return, elevating their distinct sound and delivering 12 all-new tracks, which also marked their return to the live stage to continue to captivate and further build on the project’s form and legacy