I expect Unsound festival is familiar to many readers. With Australia born novelist Mat Shulz as its artistic director and Gosia Plysa as executive director, in Kraków it is a significant gathering for boundary-pushing artists and music fans from around the world. While festivals such as CTM in Berlin—where I live—can be frustrating, with long queues and no guarantee of entry, Unsound remains at a scale and price that makes it possible for artists, international attendees and locals to rub shoulders and meet.
My interest in attending this year’s Noise-themed festival was piqued by the billing of both Steve Goodman, who DJs and produces as Kode9, and Jace Clayton, who does similarly as DJ/rupture. Goodman is also a sound theorist whose book Sonic Warfare (2009) transgressed the boundaries of Continental Philosophy, Cultural Studies, Media and (Sound) Art Theory, widening a path cleared by Kodwo Eshun’s More Brilliant Than The Sun (1998). Fifteen years after its publication Sonic Warfare remains a foundational text for Sound Studies, and Goodman presented a new preface he wrote for an upcoming Italian edition of the book during the festival’s discourse program. Kode9 later DJed a set marking 20 years of Hyperdub, the influential London-based label that he founded.
Clayton seemed to have been booked on the basis of the re-issue of his first cassette released as DJ/rupture, a mix titled 1 +1 = 3, originally produced 25 years ago in 1999. Clayton’s music blog, “Negrophonic”, was particularly influential in the early 2000s and accompanied his program, “Mudd Up!”, on New York community radio, WFMU. His “band project” Nettle, founded when he lived in Barcelona, was an unlikely combo of cello, violin, guembri, guitar and voice treated with digital processing. Clayton is also a journalist and authored the book Uproot (2016) that recalls his travels around the world as a DJ, tracing the shift from analogue to digital modes of music production and distribution that accompanied the globalisation of localised dance music cultures.
I first encountered both artists through friends at Frigid, a chill club night in Sydney from which Cyclic Defrost emerged. Indeed, I VJed for a set DJ/rupture performed at Hyde Park Barracks during Sydney Festival circa 2001, soon after the release of his “stylistically promiscuous” calling card mix “Gold Teeth Thief”. Some years later I connected with Clayton in Brooklyn via mutual friends, Larisa Mann AKA DJ Ripley and his occasional Nettle bandmate Grey Filastine. Actually, when touring Filastine in Australia circa 2006 with Über Lingua we played a venue along Oxford Street on a quiet Sunday night and by coincidence the VOID crew had booked Kode9 to play on the floor below. We dropped by after our show, but didn’t it didn’t leave a strong impression. I do, however, retain an animated GIF-like memory of Luke Dearnley, a co-founder of Frigid and half of the now legendary “dex ’n’ FX” duo Sub Bass Snarl, on another occasion hobbling around to Kode9 and The Spaceape’s “Backward” during Frigid’s tenure at the Hopetoun Hotel.
As a young person encountering experimental, electronic and digital musics in Sydney via programs like “What Is Music?”, “Impermanent Audio” and “NOW Now”, I eventually learned how to mix after a short stint in London in the early 2000s where I was exposed to UK garage, desi and grime. Keeping apace with the nascent music blogosphere and file-sharing networks, I would burn mp3s onto CD-Rs to practice on a set of Denon tray-mounted CDJs that belonged to my then housemate Dan Conway, formerly of Juju Space Jazz, who urged me on. During this era, Goodman and Clayton were among those who seeded in me the idea that a DJ could also be a critical thinker and public intellectual, alongside the aforementioned Larisa Mann, a legal scholar and street medic, with reference to the example set by the much respected ethnomusicologist, DJ and blogger Wayne Marshall (Wayne & Wax). I should also mention, Seb “Yellow Peril” Chan, the other half of Sub Bass Snarl, whose regular column in the weekly dance music street press, 3D World, was another precedent. After toing and froing for several years, I finally relocated to Berlin in 2017 to pursue research opportunities. While I’ve careered around the edges of academia, media activism, contemporary art and cultural criticism, Goodman and Clayton (alongside Eshun and Mann) have remained touchstones and I recently returned to DJing for my artistic-research project fugitive radio, partly out of an interest in software. Unsound thus presented an opportunity to catch up with those whom I half-jokingly refer to as my “DJ forefathers.”
Funnily enough, I assumed that Unsound took its name from Goodman’s Sonic Warfare, in which the word refers to a sound not heard—simultaneously frequencies beyond the range of human hearing and as a music yet-to-come—punning on how it can also describe unsavoury and disreputable practices. So I was surprised to learn that the first Unsound occurred in Wagga Wagga, NSW, in 2003, organised by Schulz’s brothers and friends. Stranger still, I recall attending an Unsound event by the Wagga Space Program around that time featuring Lucas Abela, Clare Cooper, Alan Lamb and Sue Harding with an ensemble of dot-matrix printers! While the Wagga Wagga events wrapped up around 2006, Unsound has since evolved into a week-long festival in Kraków, where Schulz has lived since 1995 , and a platform for commissioning new work and producing satellite events; this year in Adelaide, Warsaw and New York. It is also a label, co-releasing South Korean artist bela’s much anticipated and highly praised Noise and Cries (굉음과 울음) with Subtext earlier this year.
So while Unsound presented numerous notable concerts, club nights, installations and a discourse program, my focus here is on the festival’s DJ sets. Once in Kraków, I sensed a backlash against DJ culture, as people voiced to me their disdain for the popular Boiler Room platform, complained about the exorbitant fees headlining DJs charge and generally begrudged those who, to paraphrase British producer aya, “make a career out of playing other people’s music”— albeit admitting to having done so herself. Are such criticisms warranted? Let’s cut to the chase.
Kode9, UPROAR, photo: Michal Murawski 2024.
Kode9 (and Heavee), Thursday 3 October
During his presentation in the discourse program, Goodman revealed that he suffered from continuous tinnitus manifesting as a high-pitched ringing in his ears. So it seemed poignant that Kode9 opened his “History of Hyperdub” set for UPROAR club night with a wall of white noise. As the voice of an MC on London pirate radio filtered through its crevices, I could make out: “this is an exclusive…” before the sound dropped like a curtain to foregrounding a minimal beat. As a blue fog settled across Room 1 of the Kamienna 12 warehouse venue, I thought: “melancholic garage? Let’s just call it Burial.” While I recognised the ANTIDAWN t-shirt Kode9 was wearing, I’ve never paid much attention to Hyperdub’s most lauded—and for some time, shrouded—artist. Indeed during this memorial set, I realised that despite having subscribed to the label’s email list since its early years, I’m unfamiliar with much of its catalogue, which now spans hundreds of releases. Kode9 dropped tracks that I recognise but can’t name (“anything you want, anything you want…”) alongside those that I’ve spun dozens of times (Zomby’s “Kaliko”), but never heard with such clarity and force as via the venue’s sizable sound system. Delivering a definitive bottom end kick that pushed clubbers along, I was surprised to hear melodic percussive patterns fluttering in the tops. As Kode9 dialed echo into a transition, I scanned across the fog filled room, making a mental note of hoodies head-nodding in a deep purple haze.
After a couple more relatively down tempo tracks, I made a break back to Room 2 to catch the end of Heavee’s set. I’d been keen to experience this young footwork producer coming into their own, off the back of releases on Hyperdub and Teklife, but was frustrated by overlapping set times. Earlier, I’d caught Heavee opening with “Floor Burn”, dancing enthusiastically behind the decks, dreadlocks flailing across their hi-viz Hyperdub tee, as they cut to a flip of Madonna’s “Hung Up.” When they dropped another time bomb, LFO’s “Freak”, I decided to leg it next door to make the beginning of Kode9. As I returned, bouncing briskly up the entry ramp in the drizzle, I heard people shrieking with delight.
When I jumped back to Room 1, Kode9 had ratcheted up the tempo. We’re still in dark garage territory, but the sounds were switching around. Tracks dropped in for a verse or a fleeting refrain before being moved on, until one long cascading piano lead out is left to play. As it’s about to fade to silence, a snaky bassline edges in, catching us before the fall. I’ve been thinking about how DJing is an art of push and pull—tension and release—and after 30 years in the game, Kode9 is masterful at the decks. Rather than tricky showmanship, it’s evident in his precise timing and confident selections that bring a sense of drama; heightening emotions, rather than just shuffling around BPMs, although he does that too. I note the way Kode9 uses delay to alter the accent of a rhythm and then pivot the mix onto a different tangent. I’m amused when The Bug’s “Skeng” prompts the crowd to point pistol fingers in the air. It chugs along for a minute before another dubstep anthem everybody else in the room seems to know comes up beneath Flowdan’s distinctive baritone. Switch to a grime track before the sample of “9 Samurai” pulls me way back in time, the song’s descending bass notes cut like a laser beam through the dense collective body.
A sense of nostalgia is arguably baked into the music of Burial as well as that of another definitive Hyperdub artist, the late DJ Rashad, who is evoked when—as anticipated—Kode9 shifts gears into footwork. Nevertheless, I’m stunned when a snippet of Kode9’s remix of Massive Music’s “Find My Way”— a song that was ubiquitous around 2007 and that I had long-forgotten—brings back vivid impressions of another lifetime. An Unsound veteran I chat to later on a tram describes this set as a history lesson, while it strikes me as being autobiographical. As Hyperdub’s founder and “label boss”, I expect Goodman has some personal relationship with the artists he has released. Indeed, Rashad’s death in 2014, alongside that of Kode9’s early collaborator The Spaceape (Stephen Gordon) in the same year, streaks this anniversary set with a sense of loss that is more than just the passing of youth. While it’s a considerable archive, recent releases from the aforementioned Heavee and also Kode9’s still propulsive productions signal Hyperdub’s relevance and ongoing commitment to boosting frequencies not yet heard.
DJ/rupture, IMPULSE, photo: Michal Murawski 2024.
DJ/rupture, Saturday 5 October
While Clayton has long retired his blog and radio show, and the label he co-founded with Matt Shadetek in 2008, Dutty Artz, folded a decade on, I’ve retained some interest in his activities via his infrequent email updates. In conversation with Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork as part of the discourse program, Clayton discussed a recent multichannel sound installation, his academic roles at Bard College and, with tongue-in-cheek (I hope!), described his “neo-conservative turn” away from sampling and remix culture. After acute concussion from an accident prevented him from working in front of a screen, Clayton used university funding to invest in modular synths. Improvised live recordings from this last endeavour were used on the soundtrack of Sierra Pettengill’s documentary film Riotsville USA (2022), that concerns training towns built by the US military in the 1960s where simulations of popular uprisings were run in order to contain civil rights movements. Having not seen DJ/rupture perform for over 20 years, this update made me even more curious about what he would do.
Featuring on the IMPULSE club bill and playing in the more intimate Room 2, DJ/rupture strode purposefully towards the decks wearing a bright orange printed shirt with a pyramid motif and a backpack from which he pulled two encoded vinyl records. In this phase of digital music technology, it’s a novelty to watch a DJ work with discs, so I was attentive as DJ/rupture screwed in the stylus of two turntables with nervous fingers, booted up a laptop that I assumed was running Serato and pressed a USB into a lone CDJ. DJ/rupture is a collagist and he really plays the turntables. Tapping the vinyl he bounced the needle to produce a rhythm, turning up the delay. Birdsong and a voice singing in a language I don’t know was mixed with the sound of hand drums. Handling the mixer to chop in a heavier beat, DJ/rupture adds effects to produce a layered sound. A blend of ragga beats, crunchy noise and Jamaican patois reminds me of Kid 606’s label, Tigerbeat6, as the mix veers towards jungle. Poised right up in front of the stage, I’m enjoying watching DJ/rupture at work, but am wary of nostalgia. So when I turn to face the crowd I’m delighted to find the room full of clubbers, young and old dancing together enthusiastically. I can’t help but laugh as pistol fingers are raised once again, this time when DJ/rupture drops the riff from Britney Spears’ “Toxic”, before zooming off into breakcore. We enter an extended section of footwork that seems to taper into a tight corner of recursive loops (DJ Manny?). With no end in sight, DJ/rupture brakes the turntables, leaving us hanging for some seconds, before starting up and turning over the mix to a hip hop beat. I often hear DJs talk about rehearsing their live performances, finessing their mix according to pre-determined cue points, so I was relieved that DJ/rupture made a show of being fearless, adventurous and playful, and had us all hanging on for the ride.
Valentina Magaletti & upsammy, CLASH, photo: Helena Majewska 2024.
upsammy, Wednesday 2 October
Another favourite set came from upsammy (Thessa Torsing), during Wednesday night’s opening party at the charming Klub Poczta Clówna, where the Dutch DJ/producer prompted an unselfconscious and effervescent dance floor. Her ping-pong rhythms, cushioned with synth pads and occasionally textured with grittier tones, were an exercise in dance floor physics and kinetic energy that the seemingly unflappable ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U, who played after, could not muster with his opening volley of slickly produced club bangers. I didn’t recognise a single track upsammy played and when I approached the stage to see what she was doing, I was blinded by a shower of strobe lights. Between the sparks I could make out a slim silhouette wearing a peaked cap darting between the decks.
A reputably quiet achiever, upsammy performed live with a laptop the previous night for the CLASH concerte at Manggha museum alongside percussionist Valentina Magaletti who played a variety of drums and a vibraphone. To my ears this was a supple interplay of digital and acoustic sounds. Performed and processed live, their set produced an abstract, virtual space comprising synthetic timbres and staccato twitches.
Showcasing her versatility, Magaletti was later paired with Nídia, a DJ/producer affiliated with Lisbon’s Príncipe Discos, and whose techniques and approach are notably different to upsammy’s. As Nídia rhythmically played the cue button of the CDJ, it occurred to me that their sounds were similarly matched—and now that I think about it—Nídia had probably sampled Magaletti’s playing for their recent collaborative release Estradas (2024). Gripping the microphone with a performative flourish, Nídia added her voice to the mix, making use of the CDJ’s loop functions to tighten the rhythm, heighten the tension and build a crescendo that brought their performance to its climax.
DJ Anderson Do Paraiso, PEAK, photo: jasinÿ 2024.
DJ Anderson Do Paraiso, Friday 4 October
Hailing from Brazil’s inland mining city of Belo Horizonte where he helped developed its “funk mineiro” sound, DJ Anderson Do Paraiso’s music is tinged with a haunted, black magic aesthetic. Described as “ambient space funk” by Brazilian critic GG Albuquerques via Nadine Smith at Pitchfork, when DJing during the PEAK club night in Kamienna 12’s Room 2, Paraiso refutes this label. Undeniably slow and hypnotic, his music’s spare hits are anchored with an ominous bass pressure that occasionally reminds me of dub. It’s a striking contrast to the hard drum style that marks many of the sets at Unsound. Repetitive, if not monotonous, vocals float in the middle of the mix; disembodied chants of “chão” that would have a Brazilian crowd drop their asses to the floor, grinding on their haunches. It takes a while, but towards the end of Paraiso’s set Unsound clubbers succumb to the low end’s magnetic pull, winding themselves down towards the centre of the earth. Occasionally Paraiso, big square white shades propped up on his brow where most DJs wear their headphones, steps out from behind the decks to give a sign. His sidekick hovers around the edge of the DJ table, mixing drinks and rolling spliffs. While they might share some horrorcore sensibilities, Paraiso’s laid-back style and big smile are a reprieve from the in-your-face antics of Lord Spikeheart who commanded the stage just prior, and I find the change of pace re-energises the crowd, prompting them to sink deeper into the funk rather than spacing out.
Lechuga Zafiro, IMPULSE, photo: jasinÿ 2024
Lechuga Zafiro, Saturday 5 October
Pablo de Vargas’ Lechuga Zafiro incarnation closes off the IMPULSE club program at 5am on a Sunday morning. I’m struggling to stay upright and awake, but am determined to see the Uruguayan producer and self-described “CDJ breaker” take to Room 1 and his performance on four CDJs is undeniably virtuosic. Lechuga Zafiro, which Google translates as “Sapphire Lettuce”, begins his set with looping hand drums that he multiplies into polyrhythms then manipulates into glitchy forms that eventually mutate into angular breaks. Lechuga Zafiro employs hyperreal imagery of amphibious bio-technological life that parallels the digitally-warped field recordings he uses as his base material. Stepping back to wriggle the tension out from his nimble fingers, he remains focused on the decks as he demonstrates his considerable techniques; rapidly finger-drumming the cue while dexterously setting loops, chopping the faders and tapping in effects. The crowd teeters to the rhythmic criss-crossing on the massive sound system and he occasionally spins off, allowing us a short reprieve. Leaning against the barrier, it takes all my energy to force my eyelids open and watch in awe, while the room behind me bounces ecstatically on its toes.
ZULI, BASH, photo: Michal Murawski 2024.
ZULI: Sunday 6 October
On the last day of Unsound, I join the faithful shuffling into the basement of Alchemia tavern in Kraków’s old town for its closing party, BASH. While I’m beyond any further stimulation, I’m curious to catch ZULI. While living in Cairo, he earned a reputation for his twitchy CD-skipping remixes and “triggerfinger” bass productions. Now based in Berlin, ZULI’s promoting his recent release, Lambda (2024) and performed a live set earlier in the festival showcasing this more sombre and introspective material. Yet tonight, a couple of acts in, ZULI ambushes the audience with metal—high tenor vocals glissando across machine-gun guitars punctuated with double kicks. I’ve no appetite for rock and wander outside for a late night snack. When I return some 30 minutes later with a couple of local musicians I’d met at a zapiekanki vendor across the street, ZULI is still on stage but is now blasting stomping rave sounds from the subterranean PA, a pixelated wash of pastel hues projected behind him. I grin as synth stabs with vibrato peaks tweak from mid to high. They remind me of Prince, betraying techno’s indebtedness to funk, before an oscillating bassline rises up to become a full body wave of vibration, turning the room into jelly. ZULI is undoubtably a versatile producer and one should not underestimate his ability to bring sounds that are unrelenting, euphoric and laugh-out-loud funny. While others slither, scurry and scatter beats and bleeps across space-time to realise their dancefloor dynamics, ZULI taps directly into hardcore’s mainline, riding the rush to push even further towards an outer limit. It’s exhilarating and fulfilling and I exit as the next DJ cues up. I can’t take anymore.
DJ E, Opening Party, photo: Helena Majewska 2024.
Afterword
By the end of Unsound I am understandably exhausted, however my reflections are not exhaustive. For example, Chuquimamani-Condori, whom I’m most familiar with as Elysia Crampton, played at the opening party, donning a giant cowboy hat as DJ E. What I caught what sounded to me like a number of ripped YouTube recordings of sonideros being played simultaneously, with an emphasis on compressed bass and mid-range distortion. Bucking the trend of ever more finely detailed and polished digital productions, their set stood apart from anything else I heard at this year’s festival. I would have loved to have seen ojoo playing alongside 2K88 on the Saturday club night, but it clashed with the debut of Aïsha Devi and Slikback’s collaboration, AKA HEX. Last year oojoo, a Moroccan DJ living in Brussels, played an exceptional set of heavy bass at Unsound’s opening party, claiming her place on the European club circuit. Other back-to-back sets that I sampled included: CCL and Lee Gamble, Surusinghe and TSVI and Manuka Honey and Safety Trance. While b2b pairings of up-and-coming DJs with their more seasoned counterparts seems to be a feature of Unsound, I did not find them very satisfying. I suspect they compel those featured to play wall-to-wall bangers rather than teasing out the ebb and flow of a mix.
So, returning to the question that frames this review: in terms of music criticism do DJs warrant this much attention? To answer, I offer that there are several approaches a DJ could take; a music performer, an entertainer, or a reclusive selector who puts the music upfront, and Unsound showcased a range of positions across this spectrum. Arising from the shantytowns of Kingston, Jamaica and the neglected boroughs of New York, the combination of two turntables and a mixer are a black working class invention that have now been around for some 50 years. In this relatively short timespan, DJing has evolved from the hands on the platter “cut’n’mix” of vinyl records to push button “live editing” on CDJs, software and MIDI controllers, with each technological turn revitalising how recorded music can be performed.
I stopped DJing around 2010, when DJ software was phasing in; partly out of concerns for my hearing and also because my interests shifted to post-graduate studies. I only became curious again late in 2018, during a residency with a community arts organisation, Procomun, in the historical port city of Santos, Brazil. At local parties people would mix on their laptops using Virtual DJ, which led me to investigate a range of software alternatives, settling for some time on the free and open source MIXXX. Around that time I also experienced Zúir performing live in Berlin, playing the CDJs “like an instrument”; looping, cue-sampling, chopping faders and also singing—blending tracks with little regard for genres and blurring any distinction between a DJ mix and live music performance. However it was only during the COVID pandemic that I wholeheartedly returned to the decks, funnily enough, prompted by the release of Kode9’s 12 inch, “The Jackpot/Rona City Blues” in January 2021. Its bold jagged synths, game-engine sound design and algorithmic drum patterns set to diverging speeds piqued my curiosity about the kinds of experimental club musics being made during lockdowns. Eventually, in-the-mix, I came to understand DJing as a mode of research, bringing together my formerly competing interests.
Last year at Unsound I was chatting to a young person who divulged that they would like to learn music production but didn’t have the patience. They explained that having been raised on social media, they expected near immediate results and validation. So for them, DJing was a more attractive proposition, especially as software automation had replaced the foundational skill of beat-matching with a touch pad tap on a setting. While such perspectives might provoke the ire of older generations, this kind of access to music and to the experience of playing music—to the power of music—is arguably a process of democratisation. Given new technologies, access to equipment and online tutorials, the uptake of DJing as a practice, craft and popular artform is certain to evolve, and perhaps the most exciting innovations will emerge from zones where the club standard Pioneer CDJs have not so far established a barrier to entry. This is all to say, that despite the haters—paraphrasing Goodman paraphrasing Deleuze citing Spinoza — we still don’t know yet what a DJ can do.
