The Ablaye Badji Band performing in Kraków at Klub Zaścianek as part of the POD BAOBABEM Festival 2024. This is the album premiere concert and ADUNA (Life) is already streaming. Senegalese multi-instrumentalist Ablaye Badjis is one of the best exponents of world music in Kraków.

A trailblazer in the world of progressive rock and metal, TOOL is comprised of vocalist Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Adam Jones, bassist Justin Chancellor, and drummer Danny Carey. The band has consistently pushed the boundaries of music, blending complex rhythms, dense lyrical themes, and intricate instrumental work. Over the course of their career, TOOL has [...]

Namena Lala, the solo project of Natalia Orkisz, showcased songs from her new album LALA to a packed Klub Re in Krakow on March 22. There’s plenty to admire during this live set: innovative vocal loops build, while clever, deft digital percussive touches and subtle shades of other instrumentation add to a creative palette bursting [...]

New Model Army took Kraków by storm with an electrifying performance at Klub Kwadrat on Friday, March 8th, as part of their tour promoting their latest album 'Unbroken.' Led by principal songwriter and singer Justin Sullivan, the band showcased their signature blend of raw energy, powerful lyrics, and politically charged anthems. Their new album, 'Unbroken,' [...]

Spięty delivered a mesmerizing performance last Friday, March 1, at Klub Studio in Kraków, Poland. As part of a concert tour showcasing his third solo album, Hubert “Spięty” Dobaczewski, known for his work with the acclaimed band LAO CHE, took the audience on a journey through his latest musical creations.

Kraków’s vibrant music scene was electrified last night as Swiss extreme metal pioneers SAMAEL took the stage at HYPE PARK. The event, titled “Passage to Mystic Festival 22024,” served as a tantalizing teaser for the upcoming Mystic Festival, set to unfold at the historic Gdańsk Stocznia.

Songbirds Kraków Festival & Showcase is the new music movement in Kraków focused on the singer-songwriter scene and featuring a plethora of local and international talent.

Kraków Music was at the Cavalera Conspiracy concert at Klub Studio through the lens of collaborating photographer Norbert Burkowski (No. photos), who captured the essence of death/trash metal on and off stage.

An avant-garde music festival in Kraków, SACRUM PROFANUM blurs the boundaries between classical and alternative music and explores the fringes of 20th century contemporary music, avant-garde and indie classical.

Formed in 2001 in Warsaw, Poland, Riverside is a rock band known for their distinctive and atmospheric music characterised by its fusion of progressive rock, metal, and alternative rock, creating a unique and captivating sound that has gained them a dedicated international following.

Far away from the hills of Appalachia, stumbling down the stairs into a cavernous Kraków cellar bar is the last place you’d expect to uncover the southern musical harmonies and black hill banjo finger-picking joys of a bluegrass band belting out exceptional covers with a Pole, an Irishman and an Italian among the members.

TV Girl is an American indie pop band was live in Kraków at Tauron Arena. Known for their dreamy, sample-based sound and clever lyrics. The band was formed in 2010 by Brad Petering and Trung Ngo in Los Angeles, California. Their music often incorporates samples from pop culture sources, including movies, TV shows, and vintage recordings, creating a nostalgic and whimsical atmosphere.

Berlin avant-garde four-piece, HOPE, have plenty of admirers – from Bauhaus, Idles and Algiers to US producer Gordon Raphael. Depeche Mode are also fans and they were recently supporting the English synth-pop legends in Tauron Arena, Krakow.

Depeche Mode live in Kraków at Tauron Arena on August 4, 2023.

Karl Culley showcased songs from his new album Stories Save Our Lives (Loose Wire Records) on May 20th – in Krakow’s Strefa Otwarta. Live, he’s always a treat, his voice’s hushed tones the perfect backdrop to the cauldron of percussive sounds he coaxes from his instrument. The collective result is intimate, barely amplified, yet somehow cinematic, spacious and grand.

Tegnaputan’s new interstellar prog-space-rock opera aims high. Combining cosmic concepts and musical aplomb, the live show is a conceptual extension of the album and a visual extravaganza, musically elaborate and hugely theatrical.

Tangible and enchanting modern relics, concert posters on paper are the old windows to the world of live music. Like a fleeting melody, their era is gradually fading into obscurity giving way to digital media and online promotion. The once ubiquitous charm of physical posters has been overshadowed by pixels and screens. Just think of the [...]

Revered prog-rock icon, 73-year-old Peter Gabriel, started his new i/o tour in Tauron Arena, Kraków, last night. His music since leaving Genesis in ’75 has rarely been predictable, and his 4-decade-long solo career has always been required listening: genre-defying, experimental, musically diverse and ambitious, bristling with political/social commentary and wry wit.

NANGA is the project of LAO CHE’s keyboardist and percussionist Filip Różański and Maciej Dzierżanowski featuring keyboardist and saxophonist Karol Gola also from Lao Che and vocalist Magda Dubrowska (Gang Śródmieście, Utrata Skład). They released their first album “Cisza w Blok” in November 2020.

It’s not that they haven’t been there, in fact, women musicians, singers and composers abound and their work speaks for itself. At times we wonder if we should wait a whole year to underline that fact with a blog post as this one.

One of the most important hip-hop and electronic bands in Poland today, Fisz Emade has carved a niche in the Polish music industry with their unique approach to hip hop by blending it with jazzy grooves and samples. Since 2001 they have release 9 albums with “Mamut” counting as one of their major achievements.

This last weekend Hańba! celebrated 10 years of musical career at Klub Gwarek. The Polish conceptual, folk-punk, four piece has been re-inventing the sound of punk by transplanting it to interwar Poland in the 1930s. If you don’t know them, this is your chance to join their cause.

Check out the roster of bands that participated in the Live Wire Concert Series in 2022. Thank you all and we look forward to 2023 with more music!

Pidżama Porno celebrated 35 years of music career in Kraków at Klub Studio with a powerful performance featuring guests such as Jacek Jędrzejak, Swiernalis & Bajzel.

Danish producer and musician Anders Trentemøller was live in Kraków at Hype Park as part of his MEMORIA Tour promoting his eponymous album. Check out this photos and listen to his music.

Jozef Van Wissem provides a night of Baroque wonder and macabre delight in Klub RE’s medieval cellar. Van Wissem looks fittingly otherworldly, like a shaman, the kind of soul who might guide you through a rather troublesome psilocybin journey, but who also might, given the wrong circumstances, make that trip even worse; he emanates pure serenity and calm wisdom.

The Ablaye Badji Band live at Klub Alchemia in Kraków. One of the best performances of the five-piece band so far in Kraków, this is the first collaboration between the legendary Alchemia and Kraków Music.

The bastard child of the pandemic, social media and the all-encompassing boredom we experienced in 2021, Ninja Episkopat is a fusion of electronica, contemporary and improvised music. Listen to their EP and read the review of their summer debut concert at Klub Baza.

Text by Jakub Marszałek originally published on FB at Nieobiektywnie i nieregularnie. 🇬🇧 READ IN ENGLISH HERE All photos by Norbert Burkowski (No.Photos) for Kraków Music & Follow The Step Niestety wiele wskazuje na to, że H.P. Lovecraft miał rację i za stworzenie świata odpowiada byt pokroju Azathotha. O co chodzi z ową istotą? Jest to [...]

The 2022 edition of the Kraków Live Festival had a purely pop vibe. It featured electro-pop, hip-pop, neo-pop and rock-pop artists from abroad and Poland. Check out the Polish segment of the programme and see how up to date you are with Polish pop music and culture.

Bogdan Markiewicz plunges into the heave music scene in Kraków and shares his account of what went down in PAON as part of the concert series Fellowship of the Riff organised by label and booking agency Galactic SmokeHouse.

On Saturday night in Indalo Space, Luiz de Oliveira (guitar, vocals), Wojtas “Śwital” Świtalski (percussion) and Ethan Smith (bass) tore into energetic and bombastic blues covers of BB King, Muddy Waters and John Mayall to name but a few. This is blues for the 21st century, it’s musical medicine administered in the depths of a snowy mid-winter’s night. Fu•k it – this is a blues revival – and it’s here and now.

On 12 December 2021 the Villa Decius Cultural Institute hosted a unique performance which brought together for the first time two sons of Africa: Ablaye Badji (Senegal) and Ethan Smith (South Africa). Their first collaboration in Kraków, it captivated an audience eager for live world music.

Born atop the Beskid Sądecki mountains, the Grajdół Festival made its way to the urbanscape of Kraków for a one-off show at PAON. Bogdan Markiewicz reviews the eclectic lineup headlining stoner doom four-piece Moonstone and featuring Ignu, Makiwara (both from Warsaw) and DJ Szoszana XD (Katowice).

Polish-Norwegian guitarist, Nicolai Stensland Szewczyk talks about his musical path and experiences with Kraków Music in a new instalment of the interview series Against the Frets. Listen to some of his musical influences and current listenings.

An eclectic, blistering three-band finale with Trupa Trupa, The Band of Endless Noise and Why Bother? kicked off the last night of the Green Zoo Festival at a packed Klub Re on Saturday Nov 20th.

In this review of the Oneiric Dunes concert at the Sukiennice, Bogdan Markiewicz tells us about his overall experience at the Gallery of 19th Century Polish Art housed in the Cloth Hall on the Main Market Square in Kraków. A fine description of the performance including his general impressions.

Listen to the new single by 2 Cardigans & Bowtie, a South African-based five piece blending hip-hop and jazz. Read the review and the commentary by compatriot, alto-sax Ethan Smith.

The music video of “FIRE” by non-essential workers (n.e.w.) gives you the impression that you’re in for a dark synth-pop ride into an unnamed dystopia in the not-too-distant future. The band has more social commentary to make. Listen and watch the video.

A gift for melody and a charming penchant for live impromptu jams in legendary Kraków watering dens, founding member Phil Soanes reminisces on the collaborative songwriting project The Sunday Sessions, still fondly remembered by anyone lucky enough to have caught them in their element – live – in 2009 and 2010.

The new Live EP from Wrocław-based The Fake is a tour-de-force of brooding psych-rock energy. Recorded in the late Summer of 2020 just before lockdown in Klub Buda, Kraków, it doesn’t actually sound like a typical live recording.

A prolific songwriter, Luke Treble arrived in Kraków in 2014 armed with songs, his trusty 12 string Simon and Patrick, a somewhat healthy liver and a bulging hernia. He has released two digital albums and is also the guitarist and singer of The Arc & Tech Arrows.

Meet the winners of the Art and Violence International Composition Competition 2020 organised by the 2Act Foundation in Kraków. Read the interviews with the composers and get to know about their musical careers, influences, likes and interests.

It’s been one year since Kraków Music was launched. We have been busy growing our community and engaging with the local music scene. Check out the highlights of our projects, collaborations and initiatives.

Read about the genesis of this staple band in the Kraków music scene. CroDad & 100 Years combines a unique style of avant-rock with outlandish stage performances by their lead singer Chris, aka CroDad.

On the occasion of his fiftieth birthday, listen to a selection of music by Poland’s most famous contemporary jazz pianist, Leszek Możdżer. You can’t just ignore his music.

On International Women’s Day, Kraków Music celebrates and thanks women in music for their inspirations and aspirations, their paths and principles, their roles and resistance, their strength and grace, their creativity and influence. We encourage you (our readers) to listen to their music, but above all, to listen to their voice.

A UK-based jazz guitarist, Giles Barratt has been living in Poland for some time now and leading his own quartet. In this interview for Kraków Music he discusses technique and feeling, the local music scene and talks about his musical likes.

Follow up on Luc’s socio-cultural experiment involving university students and a sample of 10 albums spanning 5 decades of Polish popular music. It’s not about the ranking, it’s about negotiating meaning.

Bartek Borowicz opowiada o swojej nowej książce wydanej w czasie pandemii, a także o swojej pracy i doświadczeniu jako menadżera agencji koncertowej Borówka Music przez 15 lat.

David Rocks, the first vocalist of Püdelsi, reminisces on his time spent in Kraków in 1985 when he met and played with the late Andrzej Püdel Bieniasz.

Shaun ONeill opens the blog series “The (Recent) Archeology of the Kraków Music Scene” by reminiscing on his Polish musical adventure and revisiting the first two bands he played with: Too Pretty for Porn and Dust Bunnies.

An overview of the Nordic Jazz album “Vodjanoi” by Finnish improvisational jazz trio Hot Heros and EMC pianist Iro Haarla.

Rhythm for Refugees, a charity concert in Kraków at Klub Alchemia. Full performances.

When I was invited by the editor of Kraków Music to prepare a column under a title which would sound like ‘The 10 Polish albums that…’, my immediate answer was: ‘Yes, but no!’.

The mature debut album from Finnish songstress Paula Wolski is powerful and playful in equal measure. Recorded in an old barn turned bar-slash-music venue in the Bieszczady mountains, LATO means barn in Finnish as well as summer in Polish. Listen to the first two singles and read the full review.

non-essential workers (n.e.w.) release their first single, PEOPLE, a call to action, a call to change in times of social, economic and political turmoil. Check out the video, their lyrics and a review of the song.

Colour & Movement, Painting & Dance, Body & Music A fantastic synesthetic experience, the Art Color Ballet under the direction of Agnieszka Glińska blurs the boundaries between dance, painting and music creating a sui generis spectacle that engages both the eye and the soul. Their shows are a choreography of dance and painting strokes that [...]

An invitation to improvise and keep a certain looseness of mind in times of crisis from Adbusters Media Foundation co-founder Kalle Lasn. Play jazz and move on!

South African saxophonist Ethan Smith tells us the story behind the Moving Out concert series, as well as anecdotes about how he met each of the musicians, friends old and new, who agreed to be a part of it. A window to a very personal experience of Kraków and a showcase of the talent on the local music scene.

What does it really mean to “support” the arts & culture? We need to be more conscious about the music market and how it has developed, as well as what and how we consume live music.

Art & Music in tandem, a project by Kraków Music and Artful PL. Soundscapes is a unique audiovisual project bringing together one musician, one artist, one work of art, one instrument.

An avalanche of ambient dreamscapes, Vangelis-inspired rapture, and shoegaze-esque introspection by Ethan Smith & Grzegorz Kosowski at the former Hotel Cracovia.

A World Music concert series: an overview and retrospective on the collaboraton between Kraków Music and The National Museum in Kraków.

Classical music at the National Museum in Kraków on the occasion of International Music Day. A difficult piece by Lera Auerbach, perfromed for the first time in Poland by Cracow Singers and the Silesian Quartet.

An audio feast for connoisseurs of eclectic genres and free-style improvisations, this explosive quartet came together during the Moving Out concert series hosted by Ethan Smith and organised in collaboration with Kraków Music.

Klub Buda: A place with history and soul!One of those places you wish you would've had known of before, Klub Buda has been carving its own niche in the Kraków music scene! Tucked away on ul. Czapskich 2 (just around the corner of ul. Jabłonowskich or ul. Piłsudskiego depending which street you're coming out from [...]

Fatherhood changed my music listening habits and led me to discover hidden gems on albums I thought I knew, and find that old favourites shine all the more when alongside their album mates.

Quarantined at its genesis, Kraków Music developed to the beat of Covid-19 during the lockdown. A brief account of how an idea grew out of necessity and a big thank you to everyone who helped from the beginning.