In an age where music is often filtered, optimised, and enshittified, Unsound remains one of the few festivals committed to probing the tangled threads of contemporary culture. Its 2025 discourse programme, WEB, explores these sticky intersections across editions of the festival in Kraków, Osaka, and New York.

Through club programmes, live performances, and discussions, WEB brings together a range of artists, theorists, and innovators, addressing topics from platform capitalism and oligarchy to geopolitics, AI, ecologies, economics, influencer cults, and celebrity culture – to name just a few.

Founded in 2003, Unsound wasn’t always the boundary-pushing force it is today. The very first edition famously ended with artists being thrown out of a club for playing music “too weird” for the regulars. Two decades later, the festival sprawls across Kraków, looking back and around to push music into the future, while staying true to its mission of building digital and human networks across borders – even as politics, platforms, and global crises pull us apart.

Here’s what went down at Unsound Kraków 2025.

THE CLUB GOT INTELLECTUALISED

There’s been a lot of talk about the “intellectualisation of the club”, with plenty of event panels breaking down the sociology of the dancefloor – so much so that it’s hard to find a discussion that hasn’t already been had. But the Unsound programming delivered a novel hit of club-intellect. To start the week, a series of workshops, discussions, artist talks and presentations set the tone.

These sessions brought together a range of artists, theorists, and innovators at the forefront of music in the internet age, including names like Liz Pelley, who spoke on Un-Distracted Listening, and a panel led by RA’s Gabriel Szatan on Genre Agnosticism, alongside other free sessions exploring topics such as digital subcultures, how culture can counter nationalism and the infinite scroll.

THE LINEUP WAS STACKED

Putting that intellect into practice, the night programme was stacked with emerging, experimental, and leftfield artists, with club-goers bouncing between three spaces at the Hotel Forum (including a hidden basement zone which I only discovered on the final night).

Dribbling basslines spilled into the hallway, where glowing arcade games lit the walls. I passed a couple of club-goers trying to win teddy bears from the claw machine while Scottish DJ and producer KAVARI mutated the stage with her relentless, ear-bleed set. Other sets saw Brazil’s hyperactive producer and DJ Yvu bring anxious, jittery club beats that kept the floor bouncing, while dBridge b2b Gyrofield pulled the crowd into a set that felt like hurtling through a sci-fi score.

AMBIENT BRUNCH KEPT THE MOMENTUM GOING

What’s better than post-club brunch? Post-club ambient brunch. Sunlight streamed into the cafe at PURO Kazimierz, where a loose circle of people sank into the conversation pit, coffees in hand. DJ Whatever the Weather, the ambient alter ego of Loraine James, eased the morning in with a weightless set of tracks that influenced her recent album II.

LIVE PERFORMANCES THROUGHOUT THE DAY

As a precursor to the club nights, live performances were scattered throughout the days, often in smaller, more intimate venues. Names such as experimental artist Jim O’Rourke, caroline – the eight-piece experimental rock group – and New York-based rapper billy woods with DJ HARAM performed throughout the city.

Later in the evenings, the line-up continued to deliver. Performances included Norwegian slinky pop duo Smerz, Miami producer Nick León, and London-based experimental project NEW YORK, made up of Gretchen Lawrence and Coumba Samba.

MORNING GLORY SESSIONS STARTED THE DAY (OR ENDED THE NIGHT)

Only a few hours after the night programme finished, Unsound was back. To see the morning in gently, the Morning Glory sessions presented more intimate, sunlit performances in the vertiginous stalls of a 19th-century medical auditorium.

Here, Krakow-based pianist Martyna Zakrzewska and Indonesian composer and instrument builder J. “Mo’ong” Santoso Pribadi performed Transmutation Sound, featuring a unique organ-like instrument built from discarded materials — a far cry from the raucous beats of the night before. The following session saw French guitarist Nina Garcia presenting her new album Bye Bye Bird, helping the audience shake off sleep.