Poland in Iraq

Trupa Trupa is an art-rock, psychedelic post punk band from Gdańsk, Poland. According to Metro, they are combining post-punk and psych with skill. “The Beatles sing Joy Division oversimplifies them but doesn’t misrepresent them”. According to The Guardian, “the band’s music blends off-kilter melodies, dense instrumentation and lyrical explorations of the darkest side of the human condition”. The Times compares them to Sonic Youth, Radiohead and the Manchester scene in the 80s. According to Mojo, their “gripping and energetic record packs a serious punch”. KEXP highlights “ominous guitars, stern rhythms and haunting melodies” and The Quietus agrees. As Pitchfork describes, “Trupa Trupa are the rare dystopian post-punk band to embrace optimism and levity as necessary survival mechanisms. They may not have the perfect prescription for a better world, but they welcome you to imagine one together”. Trupa Trupa are Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, Tomek Pawluczuk, Wojtek Juchniewicz and Rafal Wojczal. They made their first international appearance in 2015 with the album “Headache” published by a British label Blue Tapes and X-Ray Records. A year later they signed to French Ici d’ailleurs, to release a remastered version of “Headache” on vinyl. In 2017 the band recorded and put out “Jolly New Songs” published additionally on a Japanese label Moorworks. In 2019 Sub Pop released Trupa Trupa’s single “Dream About”. The same year the band was also featured on a cassette split with a Texan alternative legend The Suspirians, published by an American label Whited Sepulchre Records. In September 2019 the group published “Of the Sun” album. The release was a result of international cooperation of Glitterbeat Records (Europe), Lovitt Records (USA), Moorworks (Japan) and Antena Krzyku (Poland). In March 2020 the labels published the band’s EP “I’ll find”. Trupa Trupa has been featured in line-ups of a number of significant festivals worldwide, including: Primavera Sound, Desert Daze, Rockaway Beach, SXSW, Iceland Airwaves, Off Festival and Open’er to name just a few. Amidst of the pandemic TT also took part in a legendary NPR Tiny Desk session. Their tracks were featured on BBC 6 Music, played by Iggy Pop, Mary Anne Hobbs, Steve Lamacq and Gideon Coe. Henry Rollins presents TT on his shows regularly. The latest Trupa Trupa releases got some notable airplay also on The Current, WFMU, KEXP and NPR.

 

Trupa Trupa is a music project that touches upon, among others the subject of history, Polish-Jewish relations, morality and ethics largely thanks to the singer and songwriter, poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, associate of the University of Oxford, where he conducts the "Virus of Hate" workshops on hate, and his poetry and the phenomenon of the Trupa Trupa band is discussed at the most important universities in the world, incl. at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Chicago, the Jewish Theological Seminary, the University of Cambridge, the University of Texas at Dallas and the Johns Hopkins University. The music project Trupa Trupa, thanks to university lectures by Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, a band member, builds a new, unprecedented in Poland, artistic and intellectual platform at the world's most important universities. This platform is an ideal place to present the richness of Polish Culture, especially its avant-garde, spiritual and romantic values, as well as historical issues.

 

The Trupa Trupa is also very positively received in Poland. The latest album of the band Of The Sun was recognized as one of the best Polish albums of the year by Culture.pl, Dwutygodnik, TVN, Tygodnik Kulturalny on TVP Kultura, Beehype, Popmoderna, Gazeta Wyborcza, a foreign branch of Radio Poland. The Przekrój quarterly recognized the previous album by Jolly New Songs as one of the best Polish albums of the decade.

 

A selection of the band's reviews can be found on the their website at this link below the biography - http://www.trupatrupa.com/pl/o-zespole 

 

 

The band's previous albums can be heard for free at https://trupatrupa.bandcamp.com/album/of-the-sun

 

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (b. 1984) – a Polish poet and musician, an author of several books of poetry revolving around the subjects of history, remembrance and ethics. He is a member of a psychedelic rock band Trupa Trupa. He has been a beneficiary of numerous international literary programs such as „Artist in Residence” in Vienna and „Styria Artist in Residence” in Graz. Grzegorz Kwiatkowski co-hosts the workshop „Virus of Hate” at the University of Oxford. He was also a guest lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley; Johns Hopkins University; the University of Chicago; Jewish Theological Seminary; the University of Cambridge and the Ted Hughes Society (“Crow at 50”); The University of Texas at Dallas and Miroslaw Balka’s Studio of Spatial Activities at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. He is a member of a European literature platform Versopolis and was a guest of a number of festivals such as Oslo Internasjonale Poesifestival and Lahti International Writers Reunion. His music and literary works have been published and reviewed in The Guardian, Modern Poetry in Translation, New Poetry In Translation, CBC, Pitchfork, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Billboard, Spin, Chicago Tribune, Times, NPR, BBC and KEXP. As a musician, he performed with his band at such events as Desert Daze Festival, Rockaway Beach Festival, SXSW, Primavera Sound and Iceland Airwaves. Trupa Trupa’s songs are regularly broadcast on radio programmes hosted by Iggy Pop or Henry Rollins. The band was also invited to take part in a legendary NPR Tiny Desk session. Its music has been published by global record labels such as Sub Pop, Glitterbeat Records, Ici d’ailleurs and Lovitt Records.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

 

On February 3, 2022, the band releases another album "B FLAT A" internationally under the Glitterbeat Records and Lovitt Records.

 

B FLAT A is an album about a kind of decline and revival of spirituality. It is an album that asks questions about ethics, morality, rationality, romanticism and spirituality. B FLAT A is a psychedelic avant-garde vehicle that allows the foreign listener traveling in it to understand the phenomenon of Polish Culture. Especially in the live version.