This edition of the festival KRAAK, like the 17 which have gone before, will lead lovers of adventurous music through the labyrinth of underground and experimental music. Over three days, the festival will put on a wide range of new music and underground music shows without forgetting the undisputed masters of the genre.
Since releasing their first album in 1996, KSIĘŻYC has been Poland’s best-kept secret. Their music is an update of Slavic folk music in which electronic elements and the spectral nature of the avant-garde are plunged into songs which resound with an intensely profane spiritualism. Księżyc is the perfect antidote to these consumerist and superficial times.” Droning folk music has many immediate functions: the celebration of life; to unravel time before us with its duration; to mourn our Earthly losses. Księżyc have emerged from the wilderness as true masters of the art form”, adds The Quietus.
+++ practical information
+++ find out more about the band on the KRAAK festival’s website
KSIĘŻYC
Agata HARZ – vocals, objects
Katarzyna SMOLUK-MOCZYDŁOWSKA – vocals, keyboards, objects
Robert NIZIŃSKI – clarinet, keyboards, objects
Lechosław POLAK – accordion, keyboards, synthesizers
Remigiusz MAZUR-HANAJ – tapes, hurdy¬gurdy, violin
The album Rabbit Eclipse is the second recording by the group Księżyc. The first, eponymous, album came out in 1996… And the moon is still shining.
The Penultimate Press had reissued this debut album in 2013, taking the view that it was not the least bit dated: the group enjoyed a resurgence of interest and even began performing again, which helped inspire them to write new songs. These songs were recorded between May and September 2015 in Warsaw, in the “Królikarnia” (The hunting ground), by all of the original members in order to pool their sense of the classical and the experimental, the ancient and the contemporary. The songs have fewer vocal parts and are longer, the tension which is released characterised by its subtlety and sense of melancholy. Rabbit Eclipse is the natural continuation of the first album, yet it heralds a new stage in the group’s evolution.
You can find reviews of the album Rabbit Eclipse on the sites of The Quietus (EN), Penultimate Press (EN) and Muzyka.onet.pl.
Polish-speaking persons can hear one of Księżyc’s musicians, Remigiusz Mazur-Hanaj, talking about his group in an interview on the Radio 2 site.
PRACTICAL INFORMATION
>>> Beursschouwburg (rue A. Ortsstraat, 1000 Brussels)
>>> Saturday 26 February 2016 – hour TBC
>>> Saturday ticket: €30
online box office
In 2015, the KRAAK festival hosted an improvisation between the group LOTTO and Konrad SMOLEŃSKI >>> more information on this concert on our internet site.
Links
Kraak festival: http://kraak.net/festival2016/
Beursschouwburg: http://www.beursschouwburg.be/
