Sway

Last year, Unsound returned to Kraków’s Hotel Forum – the iconic brutalist hotel that looms over the Vistula River – for the first time since 2019. The space springs to life once again in 2026, when its Ballroom and Chandelier Room will be packed with dancefloor-friendly experiments, while 89, the former Communist-era strip club nestled beneath the hotel, features some of the festival’s most surprising performances.

In the main room, Venezuelan “sound collage collective” weed420 crack the night open with a live set, using musique concrète techniques and vaporwave aesthetics to mash up punk, noise and rap with cumbia and reggaetón. Then, we welcome back gyrofield, who performed last year in an exclusive b2b with dBridge, for a European live premiere. They follow an impressive recent run of bass-heavy releases, which culminated in the brilliant Your Fight on their own Field Research label, with a selection of new music. Also returning is cult Brooklyn band Deli Girls, who create controlled chaos alongside their recently enlisted drummer Murderpact before the room is handed off to South African amapiano pioneer Vigro Deep and UK bass alchemist Batu. Then, the room is capped off by a twisted b2b from two of the UK’s most relentless young innovators: self-styled "priestess of the underground" KAVARI and unconventional producer and DJ Ship Sket, who debuted on Planet Mu last year with the fractal InitiatriX.

Over in the Chandelier Room, enigmatic rapper Jawnino brings his labyrinthine tales of broken Britain to Kraków, following his recent collaborations with Surf Gang with simmering, open-minded material that reflects London’s patchwork of cultures. Heading over from Melbourne, DJ Plead jacks into the Lebanese diaspora’s musical network on his second album, Please, using its trace elements to power tracks that draw from dubstep, trip-hop, house and jungle. Opening the room is Polish duo Opla, a collaboration between Piotr Bukowski and Hubert Zemler that has in the past attempted to re-interpret Polish folk sounds. Their latest material is very different, rooted in trance-inducing rhythms and expressionistic samples.

89’s program is led by a performance from Charlie Osborne, a London-based Welsh artist who operates between disciplines, blending sound collage, installation art, underground music and fashion into a type of self-expression that feels attuned to our current deluge of information.

A few more artists will be added soon.