DISCUSSION: Critical Listening: Warszawa

As the story goes, in 1976, David Bowie wandered off a train in Warsaw and was captivated by a record of local folk music, which he would go on to reinterpret with Brian Eno on the Low track ‘Warszawa’. Fifty years later, at this year’s Unsound, Polish composer Piotr Kurek and artist Wilhelm Sasnal will reinterpret the original folk song through music and visuals, accompanied by the Śląsk Song & Dance Ensemble, who made the original recording. In this live podcast taping, Critical Listening co-hosts Liz Pelly and Max Alper are joined by Kurek, Sasnal, and Unsound co-founder and project curator Mat Schulz for a conversation on the nature of musical influence and interpretation today.

On one hand, Unsound’s WARSZAWA reclaims a Polish song that Bowie tended to describe more like a hazy, distant dream than as the actual source material for his composition, raising questions about crediting, co-optation and the creative process. At the same time, today’s music business has become increasingly litigious, often losing sight of how artistic ideas are created and exchanged, while AI products aim to invisibilise lineages, mechanise creativity, and boost ahistoricism and contextlessness. It all raises the question: could a song like ‘Warszawa’ even exist in 2026?