During and immediately after the pandemic, the split in the Polish music scene became more evident than ever before – even larger crowds began to attend “star” concerts and mainstream festivals, and clubs and events related to independent music began to close. There was a lack of audiences, and fewer and fewer new, interesting projects were being created. In some areas, this was less noticeable (jazz was still doing very well); in others, there was a clear stagnation (especially in indie/alternative rock). Still, since the pendulum had swung so much in one direction, it had to swing back to the other with a similar momentum. The last 12 months prove that this has finally happened. These are the 30 best Polish albums of 2024.
30. Porosty – Dungeon Crawler (Smashing Tape)
Monotony is usually associated with boredom, but when used as a tool by Bartosz Zaskórski (working under the name Porosty, which means “Lichens” in the Polish language), it turned out to be an asset. Thanks to the repeated instrumental parts with each subsequent minute, Dungeon Crawler draws deeper and deeper into the cyberpunk world of gloomy, dehumanized electronics. The repetition of beats, synthesizer chords, and melodies, as well as the withdrawn, heavily distorted voice, have a hypnotic effect, and processing the whole album through a retro filter results in a very raw sound from the vicinity of early EBM.
29. Lutownica – How About Twelve and Fourteen (Independent)
Lutownica (Soldering Iron) was founded almost a decade ago by musicians from Blue Raincoat, Let the Boy Decide, and Low Cut – underground guitar bands actively releasing and performing music at the beginning of this century, all of them with a devoted fan base, but the daily life took over and made them go on hiatus. The trio of Rafał Sztucki, Krystian Pilarczyk, and Zbigniew Ambroży cannot be considered very busy either; needless to say, the new album was released nine years after the debut.
However, it’s the lack of self-imposed pressure, not trying to stand in the competition for the most views and listens, and playing for their own pleasure that gives How About Twelve and Fourteen a unique kind of freedom. Lutownica’s noise rock sound is probably a bit outdated and deeply rooted in the 1990s – influences of Killdozer, Hammerhead, or Pussy Galore are easy to catch – but there’s so much authenticity in it that no one would deny if they were described as one of the bands of that era.
28. Ostatnia Klatka – Ostatnia Klatka (Independent)
In 2020, lockdowns forced us all to slow down. What was horrible for some was a horrible experience. Still, for others, it became a creative process that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible because of many other responsibilities and commitments. That’s when Ostatnia Klatka (The Last Cage) were formed but it took four more years before they released their debut album.
There’s no secret behind the main inspirations. The duo draw heavily from Polish coldwave classics from the 1980s, including such bands as 1984, Made in Poland, and Cytadela. Guitar, bass, drum machine, and almost deadpan vocals – with the use of just a few devices, they created music that is, on the one hand, piercing cold, on the other, thanks to lyrics describing both personal emotional states and broader social context, boiling with emotion.
27. Królestwo – Patho Jazz (Independent)
Królestwo’s (The Kingdom) previous two albums – 2017’s Ćwiczenia repetywne (Repetitive exercises) and 2020’s Antracyt (Anthracite) – were proof of the great power hidden in properly graded, tension-raising iteration, but there’s a risk. Repetition is a double-edged sword; even the most skilled craftsman can hurt himself without taking precautions. Perhaps that was the primary reason the band rebuilt its sound on the third album, swapping electric bass for double bass and adding saxophone, trumpet, and clarinets. The foundation remains the same, but a new, dark jazz – or, as the title suggests, pathojazz – entourage has grown around it. Names like the Necks or the Lovecraft Sextet pop into mind while listening, but at the same time, it is a fresh approach to creating music on the brink of jazz and ambient.
26. Jantar – Turnus (Thin Man)
Bossa nova hasn’t made a big comeback as of yet. Still, Billie Eilish, Laufey, TikTok, and Twitch have introduced once famous Brazilian genre, popularized by Antônio Carlos Jobim, to a new generation, and there’s much to suggest that young people love these syncopated guitar rhythms and melodic bass lines.
Warsaw’s Jantar doesn’t follow the emerging trend but fits in perfectly, recording an entire album drawing from bossa and transforming inspirations in a nonobvious way, trying something new instead of paying homage as close as possible to the roots of this music. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the band’s line-up – Jakub Ziołek, Krzysztof Kaliski, Grzegorz Tarwid, and Tomasz Popowski are musicians known on the Polish experimental, improvised, and jazz scenes for many years. Post-Bossa? Perhaps it’s the next big thing in the second half of this decade.
25. Königreichssaal – Psalmen’o’delirium (Godz Ov War)
Black metal is one of Poland’s best export goods. Furia, Mgła, Behemoth, and many others gained international recognition in the last decade, which led the scene to grow in massive proportions. Many new groups have nothing to say and simply imitate their heroes, but fortunately, some don’t want to join the mimetic choir and seek individual paths. Königreichssaal proved to be such a group with an excellent debut released four years ago (Witnessing the Dearth) and now confirm that it was no one-time luck.
Psalmen’o’delirium is an equally compelling record, although very different. The tempo is much slower, the vocals are mad and unhinged, and the mood becomes more unpleasant or even repulsive with each minute, but it’s too fascinating to hit the “stop” button. Sometimes, it’s good when the music makes us feel bad.
24. Tonfa – Trzecia szyna (Big Tonga Energy)
“Leaving the underground is a constant struggle,” says one of the verses in the song “Traczek”, but Tonfa seems to be in a superposition. They have already crossed the border of the underground and gained wider recognition. However, they remained one of Poland’s most important representatives of underground hip-hop. The key to success is the duo’s open mind and ability to work on each track with a transformative approach. Trzecia szyna (Third Rail) grows from hip-hop roots, but it’s studded with too many nuances to fall into just one category. Only so many colors can be used in the kaleidoscope, but the pattern arrangements still can surprise.
23. Faraway – Faraway (Antena Krzyku)
Faraway is another band that seemingly emerge from the Polish new wave and post-punk of the 1980s. Still, just like Ostatnia Klatka, they do not waste time for historical reconstruction, instead showing how this music could sound today if its time of glory had never passed. With the addition of the saxophone, livelier punk beats, dub pulse, synthesizer backgrounds, and even a bit of African exoticism, familiar rhythmic patterns, and piercing cold aura specific for Eastern European post-punk sounds as fresh as if they were invented yesterday. On the one hand, anyone who listened to Talking Heads, Devo, or Oingo Boingo should feel at home here; on the other hand, Faraway found their own voice on the debut album.
22. ||Ala|Meda|| – Spectra 02 (Brutality Garden)
Alameda have been recording and performing under many variations of their name and with various lineups for more than a decade now. However, what remains constant is the presence of the ever-evolving, expanding scope of Jakub Ziołek’s skills (musician of many faces, known from Stara Rzeka, Ed Wood, George Dorn Screams, Innercity Ensemble, T’ien Lai, and Jantar) and drawing from various music traditions from all over the globe.
The primary influence for the second part of Spectra (the first was released in 2022) is the diverse music of Global South. Still, there’s no cosmopolitanism or attempts to impersonate someone else behind it. Rhythms of batida, gqom, Africa, and Caribbean are some of the borrowed elements, but processed through electronics have equally much in common with deconstructed club.
21. Hatti Vatti – Zeit (R&S)
When Piotr Kaliński finally signed with R&S Records (over the years label of Aphex Twin, Biosphere, and Paula Temple, to name a few), he transformed his solo project into a quartet with a distinct jazz vibe, consisting of musicians associated with Algorhythm, Hinode Tapes, EABS, Siema Ziemia, Lumbago, and P.Unity. Fortunately, with such a skillful, boldly blending wide range of inspirations artists on board, there was no risk of reducing jazz to the level of ornament, as with numerous copycat projects of late nu jazz. Thanks to the right balance, there’s room for both instrumental virtuosity and parts that can calm the audience down or put it into a trance.