As you may know, we at tQ have teamed up with the fine folks of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland for a competition in which we asked for brand new music created using an archive of samples from the pivotal and revolutionary Polish Radio Experimental Studio, with the best receiving a hefty €2,000 prize.
With the official announcement of the winner not far away, we’re delighted to share two new specially commissioned pieces, which also use the archive of sounds, by Skalpel and We Will Fail respectively. Read on for their music, and some interviews with each carried out by our friends over in Poland.
We can also announce that a special concert celebrating the project will be live-streamed tonight at 8pm GMT. It features the aforementioned We Will Fall plus Bartosz Weber (whose commission you can listen to here
), and the brilliant Mouse On Mars! We’ll be sharing the link on the official Quietus Facebook page.
The first of our two commissions we’re sharing today is from Aleksandra Grünholz, aka We Will Fail, who delivers a cut of biting industrial techno titled ‘Descending K New’, all constructed from the PRES archive.
"For me, experimenting is an attempt at going beyond what is already known," she says in an interview which you can read in full here.
"Not just attempting to rearrange blocks in a different way to go beyond the system of blocks. In 2019, on one hand you get the impression that everything has already been done, but on the other you can always hear something that surprises you."
The second comes from Skalpel’s Igor Pudło. His track, ’20 Years Later’ is dark and richly atmospheric, blending complex and beguiling rhythm with a forward-thinking cut of hypnotic and dark electronics.
"Our first encounters [with the PRES] must have been unconscious," he tells the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. "In the 1970s and ’80s, I listened to Polish Radio’s popular science shows and audio dramas, which all had sound design done by PRES. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I recall a voice saying the program was recorded in the Experimental Studio."
For more information on the competition, and on the Polish Radio Experimental Studio, click here. The competition is now closed, with the winner to be announced in coming days.
