It's only two weeks now until the third edition of Unsound Festival New York starts. The human-eating cat featured on our festival design has been stalking Manhattan and Brooklyn, and one can feel the buzz in the spring air. All tickets are now on sale - and we recommend buying in advance where possible, as it seems certain some events will sell out. You can find a complete list of ticket links here.
Also to celebrate the warmer weather and the upcoming festival, our long-term friend pole (Stefan Betke) has put together a "Birth of Reggae Mix" appearing on our podcast series at Soundcloud. This mix is featured on today's SPIN website, on a "Control Voltage," a blog penned by music writer Philip Sherburne who writes of Unsound: "a provocative survey of electronic and experimental music that ranges from techno and dubstep to contemporary composition and doom metal, taking in, along the way, film, lectures, installations…"
Sherburne goes on to write of the pole mix: "Highlighting spacious, brightly colored dub reggae from the 1970s, it's an intriguing peek behind the curtain at Betke's own approach." Listen to it and get a speedy education in the origins of dub sound that pole and the Sun Araw Band will incorporate in different ways into their shows at (le) Poison Rouge on April 20.
Previously we mentioned the Unsound LABS talks series, taking place at Goethe-Institut Wyoming Building - presented with The Wire, and all FREE. Now we can reveal the collaborative projects that make up the music side of Unsound LABS, also free, and taking place at ISSUE Project Room. Crossing both geographical and sonic borders, this year's LABS program pairs artists from Eastern Europe and Scandinavia with musicians from the U.S.
On April 21 Next Life's Hai Nguyen Dinh (Norway) will team up with vocalist/percussionist Nondor Neval to create experimental music with roots in metal. Female Ukrainian artist Zavoloka and Andrea Pensado will perform improvised electronic works, while Kotra (also from Ukraine) will unite his extreme frequencies with Black Rain's classic post-industrial cyberpunk sound, recently reissued on the Blackest Ever Black label.
April 22 sees Estonian avant-garde songwriter Maria Minerva (Not Not Fun) combine with electronic music veteran Mark Van Hoen, whose recent Mego release "The Revenant Diary" was widely acclaimed for its dark, earthy sound. Krakow-based improvisers Denis Kolokol (voice, electronics) and Tomek Choloniewski (percussion) will perform with trumpeter Nate Wooley. Mark McGuire, of Emeralds, will pair up with fellow-guitarist Bartek Weber, of Polish band Baaba, for some dueling or perhaps rather melding guitar, Unsound-style.
Once again, all these shows are free.