Music events at Fotofestiwal

This year’s music program will be inaugurated by Bryte, who raps and sings in five languages and various styles, and Laboratorio Tropical, a group promoting the club culture of the global South. The 23rd birthday of the Fotofestival at the Book Art Museum will be with the ear and eye pleasing duo Ikarvs, and Mentalcut and Tropical Basses. At the very end of the festival marathon – SILENCE.

Here is the program of Fotofestiwal events. A full list of other accompanying events will be coming soon. For more information, see the Events tab.

_13.06 Opening of the Festival: Bryte (GH/UK) and Laboratorio Tropical / Art_Inkubator

Bryte is a rapper and vocalist originally from Accra (Ghana), living in London (UK), whom you may know from his recording for the popular COLORS Show channel. His style is a combination of Afro-electronica, rap and experimental club sounds from the UK, Ghana and beyond. His versatility also shows in his rapping in five languages and inventive and hook-laden lyrics that playfully bounce around in a wide range of different tempos and styles. / BRYTE

Also on stage will be Laboratorio Tropical, a group of DJs, promoters of the music and club culture of countries of the South, mainly around the equator, primarily Latin America and Africa. It’s a musically diverse crew: they include people who are best at cumbia, reggaeton, baile funk, kuduro, afro house and post-club. / SoundCloud

_14.06 Casablanca Night: Dj Lesu / Casablanca

After slideshows at the only old – and this year renovated – market square in Lodz, we invite you to an iconic venue – Casablanca. There, while sipping herring, we’ll be spinning pirouettes to mixes with a Polish touch of nostalgia. Lesu – DJ, beatmaker and vinyl collector. On stage for over a decade, where he presents unconventional solutions in his sets mixing many styles of music. With great fondness he weaves Polish productions into his mixes. At this year’s afterparty he will present his funky selekte, which will take you to the most interesting corners of this genre.

_15.06 23rd Birthday of Fotofestiwal at the Art Book Museum: Ikarvs Live, Mentalcut, Basy Tropikalne

After a short break, we’re returning to our favorite location for Saturday dancing, the unique gardens of the Museum of the Book of Art. This night we won’t get off the dance floor quickly, with as many as three sets on the program.

IKARVS is a journey through various genres of electronica – euphoric trance becomes pulsating disco, in a moment it turns into psychedelic ambient under the sign of the band Moon, to hit with a surprise deconstructed bass beat like Arca. The duo uses vocals in a unique way. There are Caroline Polachek-style hit choruses, as well as choral vocalizations shrouded in a fog of folk, or trance-like, cut-up vocal loops. On stage, the duo transforms into sensual characters lifted from a cyberpunk fantasy or queer fashion show. Imagine: Grimes made herself two beautiful twins with Maanam’s Kora – these babies are IKARVS. / Spotify

Founded in 2015, Basy Tropikalne is an initiative that promotes contemporary electronic music from Latin American and African countries and their diasporas. Initially functioning as a radio show (currently broadcast on Warsaw’s Radio Kampus), it later also evolved into an online music label, event series and booking agency. Events under the sign of Tropical Basses have already taken place in Warsaw, Krakow, Wroclaw, Gdansk or Poznan, and the founder of the whole venture, Mikolaj Kierski (also known from Radio New World), has also had the opportunity to play abroad, including Berlin and Brussels. / Soundcloud

Mentalcut is a DJ, producer and songwriter, co-founder of the Lua Preta project, with which he has performed in more than a dozen European countries, as well as several times in the US and – at the opening of last year’s Fotofestiwal. A fan of new sounds from Africa and South America. Author of remixes that have gained popularity on international dance floors and have been repeatedly featured on BBC, Rinse and NTS Radio. / Spotify

_22.06 Afterparty: Disko Zakvas / Willa

It’s the last Saturday of the festival, so it’s time to pull an ace out of our sleeve. Disko Zakvas – a unique DJ collective made up of curators, producers and specialists of all sorts of cultural events. Their entry behind the DJ was only a matter of time, and once they entered, they can’t leave. As befits the age of 30+ and representatives of their cognitive bubble, they are drawn towards world music, 80’s and conservative techno. They are characterized by their colorful outfits and the fact that they are still discovering new functions of the buttons on the DJ table. This makes their parties even more unpredictable, and the music carries the crowd into the morning.

_23.06 Freeing Concert: Silence / Art_Inkubator

After ten long and intense festival days, it’s time to relax. We bid you farewell with contemplative tones that are best absorbed in a horizontal position. Silence is a project by a Bydgoszcz-based duo (Kasia Golla, cello & Slawek Pieniak, modular synthesizer) focusing on long form music. Their goal is to create delicate landscapes, sound textures, bringing the listener into a transcendental state of peace and tranquility, away from the hustle and bustle of the everyday world.

See you on the dance floor!