Unsound Krakow was established in 2003 in Krakow, Poland, as a festival of advanced music. Starting out as an underground event, in recent years the festival has grown in size and name.

Fundacja Tone currently produces the annual festival in Krakow in October each year, and in spring 2012 produced the third Unsound Festival New York with local producers, curators, venues and cultural institutes in that city.

Also with local partners, Unsound/Fundacja Tone has created smaller events in Prague, Warsaw, Bratslava, Kiev, and Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Unsound is interested in the idea of cross border  collaboration, and thinking of the festival as a tool for commmissioning and fostering new work. As well as this, Unsound is focused on promoting music from Poland and generally the region east of Berlin.

Unsound is produced by Fundacja Tone, a Krakow not-for-profit organization.

The festival also has origins in Australia. Unsound was part of the Wagga Space Program from 2001 until 2006.

 

 

PRESS FROM UNSOUND FESTIVAL KRAKOW 2010

 

"It was a brilliant festival that raised interesting questions..." The Guardian

 

"Absolutely astonishing." URB

 

"One of the best Polish festivals devoted to new music... Unsound is a multidimensional festival and is not afraid of taking risks." Gazeta Wyborcza

 

"A healthy balance of crowd-pleasing talent, art-for-art's sake and genuinely brave programming choices, Unsound is a festival worth attending because it's a festival like few others in the world—one that both entertains and educates." Resident Advisor

 

"The programme mixed the challenging and the accessible, the high-art and the low... I felt engaged from start to finish, and not at the expense of having fun... Unsound: a festival even I can believe in. Bloody hell." Fact Magazine

 

 

PRESS FROM UNSOUND FESTIVAL NEW YORK 2010

 

“The Unsound Festival New York claims a shrewdly amorphous domain: a zone in a virtual Europe (including Eastern Europe and Scandinavia) where electronics; arty, multimedia experiments; chamber-music meticulousness; punk impulses; and D.J. dance beats may all appear amid clouds of noise. …this festival’s aesthetic: high-tech, allusive and not to be pinned down.” Jon Pareles, NEW YORK TIMES, February 5th 2010

 

“…the purpose of the Unsound Festival is to repel the baseless, spectacle-heavy notion that only a few states in the U.S. and a few countries in Western Europe are capable of making great, weird music that is riveting, outrageous, and thought-provoking.” VILLAGE VOICE, New York, February 2010

 

“Nearly all music festivals bill themselves as some variation of “adventurous,” and the Krakow, Poland–based Unsound Festival is no exception. But unlike other such get-togethers, which are often nothing more than expanded versions of regular club nights, Unsound—making its American debut in NYC, backs up that claim.” TIME OUT NEW YORK, February 2010

 

“Unsound Festival NY has cemented its status as one of the most important cultural festivities in New York City.” URB, February 2010

 

“you can never can be sure exactly who is going to blow your mind at festivals like this one” XLR8R, February 2010