Just when you’ve thought you’ve seen and heard everything, the OFF Festival returns with a batch of new 2025 announcements. From raging guitars to audacious electronic music, and from orchestras to DJs and duos you’ll want to take home with you. Join us August 1–3 in Katowice! Tickets are now on sale.
Panchiko
Think back to the artists you listened to in the 2000’s. We’re pretty sure Panchiko isn’t on that list: at the time, this British act was still playing local university clubs. But they’d already recorded a demo EP – tracks that, twenty years later, would launch them into stardom and sold-out shows in Europe and the United States. All thanks to one of thirty copies of cassette titled D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L, which made its way into the hands of an internet sleuth with great musical taste. He tried to track down the group, only to discover that they’d long since disbanded. But the five indie-rockers from Nottingham resurfaced and were convinced to re-release their debut EP in 2023. And that’s just the start: their new album is slated to drop in April, with a slew of promising singles promoting the upcoming release. Sounds nuts? It’s a tale not unlike many an OFF Festival story: a random discovery that changes the life of an artist. It happened to Charles Bradley and Ata Kak – artists discovered by a wide audience many years after they first debuted. Thanks to an outpouring of interest from audiences and online media, mostly in the US, Panchiko has reformed and set off on tour to, as they put it, “make a few of those kids happy with some more pop songs.” Whatever your age, we’re waiting for you at the OFF Festival Katowice.
Fat Dog
Are Black Midi, shame, Squid, and Fat Dog the Big Four bands of the guitar scene at The Windmill in London? Three of these acts have played at the OFF Festival Katowice, and now it’s time for the fourth: Fat Dog! They’ve been around since 2020, and 2024 saw the release of their critically acclaimed debut LP Woof, produced by James Ford, who’s worked with the likes of Arctic Monkeys and Fontaines D.C. DIY magazine calls it “brilliant, dark, and downright batshit crazy,” adding that it puts an end to “any conversation that originality in music is dead.” Fat Dog’s sound is a refreshing blend of electropunk, synthpop, rave, and even Klezmer music – a familiar mix to anyone who caught them last year at Glastonbury, where they played a whopping four shows. We’re looking forward to witnessing them firsthand, too, at the OFF Festival in August.
Seun Kuti And Egypt 80
The youngest son of the Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti rejoins his father’s band after first performing with them at the tender age of 12. Sean Kuti carries on his dad’s legacy alongside Egypt 80 while blazing his own trail in the music world. Brian Eno produced his album From Africa With Fury: Rise, while the Grammy-nominated Black Times features a guest performance by Carlos Santana. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80’s most recent effort, Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head), is the joint brainchild of the band and Lenny Kravitz. The LP includes an appearance by Sodi Marciszewer, a musical associate of Fela Kuti and Damian Marley. Seun’s no stranger to collabs with other artists, having recorded with Common, Janelle Monae, Madlib, and The Roots’ Black Thought. But when he takes the stage with Egypt 80, he has one goal in mind: to play the best live Afrobeat in the world.
Soft Play
The catchy name The Clash was taken, so they went with the next best option: Slaves. It wasn’t meant as a provocation, they say, but as evocation of “the grind of day to day life.” Ten years later, they decided to rename themselves Soft Play. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the Mercury Prize-nominated British duo’s musical trajectory. Raised on old-school punk and street rap, they have a sound that’s as loud as it is pithy, and have won praise from the Beastie Boys’ Mike D, who produced their third album, Take Control. Their list of fans includes Robbie Williams, who made a surprise feature on their most recent LP, Heavy Jelly. Play it on your home stereo and you’ll be on your feet in no time. Who know’s what’ll happen live at the OFF Festival!
Two Shell
We don’t know who’s behind the name Two Shell (they keep their identities secret). Is every track bearing their name actually theirs? (They’ve been known to send journalists records that don’t sound quite right.) And who’s actually on stage when they perform live? (They once gave four shows in different locations across London – all at the same time!) But that just makes all the more excited to see them at the OFF Festival! Two Shell have been called The KLF of our age and the duo that just might bring back British dance music in its boldest, most audacious form. Put on a track that samples Burial, followed by The Corrs and Sugababes, and you’ll share the experience of the Pitchfork reviewer who called the 2024 album Two Shell “dancefloor gold.” On the heels of now-legendary performances at Primavera and Coachella, it’s time for a euphoric Two Shell set at the OFF Festival Katowice – one that’ll go down in history, too.
The Hellp
Before they founded The Hellp, Noah Dillon worked as a photographer, and Chandler Lucy was a model. They came together over a shared penchant for combining designer clothes and thrift-store accessories as much as their love for Bruce Springsteen, Aphex Twin, Blink-182, and Crystal Castles. Chris Greatti, who’s worked with Yves Tumor, Yungblud, and Willow Smith, and recorded The Hellp’s catchy track “California Dream Girl,” said that the world wasn’t ready for them when they started out in 2015. A few years later, critics were calling them “the last cool band on Earth” – or at least one of the few that haven’t given up the fight against algorithms and AI. Their sound is the kind that’s conspicuously absent in mainstream American music and challenges claims about the supposed death of music. Who says music’s dead? See you in August at the OFF Festival.
Iglooghoost
He released his debut album Neō Wax Bloom in 2017 on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder label, and his latest, Tidal Memory Exo, with LuckMe, cofounded by Hudson Mohawke. But with over a decade of shows under his belt, Iglooghoost has forged a brand of his own, becoming an expert designer of alternative, multimedia worlds. He started out just wanting to make beats for other kids. But his career took flight along with his rich imagination, which has found release on a series of LPs. The first album, inspired by Steve Reich, footwork, and IDM, saw the artist exploring the fantastic land of Mamu. The latest, which reveals echoes of UK garage, coldwave, and drill, is an intense soundtrack from the not-too-distant, polluted future. Or, as Resident Advisor described it, “goosebump-inducing club music.”
Sunnbrella
We saw him at the showcase Eurosonic Festival and immediately knew we had to invite him to the OFF Festival. Born in Prague, Sunnbrella grew up steeped in the British music his English father played at home. He started out as a modest bedroom producer, but with time his project ballooned into a full band with a following far beyond Czech borders. He listened to plenty of My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, as well as Weezer and Moby (though he says he stopped after Play). That’s probably why his blend of shoegaze and dreampop makes you want to dance. And you already know the place and time: Katowice, August 1–3.
