Earlier this year, tQ teamed up with the fine folks of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland, to launch a competition celebrating the Polish Radio Experimental Archive, one of the most pivotal, though often overlooked projects in the history of modern electronic music.
We asked the public to submit new music using a sample pack made up of music from the PRES’ incredible archives, with €2,000 of prize money on offer.
After weeks of deliberation by our judging panel, made up of tQ’s John Doran, Patrick Clarke and Luke Turner, as well as Agnieszka Szydłowska from Polish Radio Channel 3, Bartosz Chaciński and Jacek Hawryluk from Polish Radio Channel 2, and The Adam Mickiewicz Institute’s Michał Hajduk and Michał Mendyk, we can now announce our winners.
The first of our three winners is David Hindmarch, whose track ‘Turbulent Ghosts’ makes innovative and forward-thinking use of the PRES archive, veering from beautiful abstract soundscapes to headspinning attacks of noise.
The second is titled ‘Rest & Relaxation’, and comes from London outfit Bad Progress. Speaking to our friends at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, they say:
"It was important that there were several changes of chord pattern and time signature in the track, but with the lead parts remaining the same, to emphasise the idea of the samples moving through different contexts, as they have moved from the time of their creation to the present day, and their sound and history are re-interpreted into a modern setting.
"There is a big afrobeat / Tony Allen influence on the drum part, which we feel is not something that would normally sit alongside these samples, but it is a key part of our musical landscape in London in 2019, as are the delayed guitars, trap-ish snare patterns, pitch shifted and auto-tuned vocals."
Our third and final winner is Gdańsk-based high school student Tymon Zaniewski, whose composition ‘Dust’ draws on influences from drum and bass, ambient music and video game soundtracks.
"In an era where music is made with the help of computers, we’re capable of recreating almost every sound and transforming it any way we want. Despite this the only innovation of new programs and instruments are differences in the interface and an easier way of doing what has always been possible," he says.
For more on all of the compositions, visit the AMI’s report here.
Our thanks to all who entered the competition. Tomorrow, we’ll be sharing some special commissions from the likes of Jlin, Matmos and Mouse On Mars, who we also tasked with creating new music from the archive.
