Poland at Eurosonic festival - RotD report

30 November 2023 - Editorial

Ahead of Poland being the lead country at January's Eurosonic festival and conference, Mongrel was invited to Warsaw last week to hear some of the artists booked to perform, and meet industry folk. 
Eight acts performed over two nights, and with our RotD hat on, Berry Galazka's "rebellious, apathetic, bravado-filled pop-punk" was the clear commercial highlight. It wasn't until the following day we found out she's working with former RotD music editor Pete Jarrett (considering we're friends he was swiftly berated for not highlighting her to us). The two electronic artists appealed to us too - Waclaw Zimpel and Zamilska have quite different approaches, sometimes introspective and exuberant respectively, but both deserve further success worldwide. Outside of that, we're aware that Polish jazz has a long, highly regarded reputation, although the music itself has passed us by. 
We learnt how the country has had a history of free local live music festivals, paid for by local councils, which naturally came to a pause for lockdown, and now a paid-for live sector is emerging, including Live Nation starting to take more of an interest.