Nicolás Jaar curates compilations exploring Polish experimental music history
Nicolás Jaar has curated a new compilation highlighting experimental Polish radio from the latter half of the 20th century.
The two volumes of ‘Would It Sound Just As Bad If You Played It Backwards? A Collection of Sounds from the Studio Eksperymentalne Polskiego Radia (1959-2001)’, out now via Jaar’s Other People label, pull from the archives of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) in Warsaw. Featured sound works are by artists Krzysztof Knittel, Bohdan Mazurek, Magdalena Dàugosz, Barbara Zawadzka, Rudnik (who’s quoted in the title), Bogusław Shaeffer, Wlodzimierz Kotoński and Elżbieta Sikora.
“We acted without any initial plans or electronic scores,” Knittel says of PRES’ ethos. “There were no goals to be achieved, no creative method defined in advance. We used our aesthetic and technological knowledge freely, the shapes of tracks emerged during our shared work in the studio.”
The volumes are covered early pieces by Polish artist Zofia Kulik, whose career overlaps the compilations’ time period from the 1960s to present.
Jaar has also mixed selections from the two collections, streaming now via the Other People SoundCloud. Listen to that Below and check out the compilations on Bandcamp.
Photo credit: PRES
