The group "Paula and Karol" was founded by Paula Bialska (PhD student in Lancaster, UK, employed at the Department of Sociology of the University of Warsaw) and Karol Strzemieczny (musician, sociologist, activist) in 2009. The group came into existence most of all for a specific reason - Paula and Karol wished to share with the audiences their approach to making and presenting music. They started to play acoustic instruments without any amplification (the guitar, violin, glockenspiel, old Casio keyboard). Later, for over six months, they played with Igor Nikiforow (a member of the "Stwory" group), who was involved in recording their singles, and who enriched the duo's instrumentation with the melodika, harmonium, percussion. Today there two more group members: Staszek Wróbel (percussion) and Krzysiek Pożarowski (bass guitar). "Paula and Karol" play concerts in clubs and galleries, but also in untypical places like streets, parks or even private houses where direct interaction with the audience generates the atmosphere of a joint artistic undertaking. The group took part in all important Polish festivals like Open'er Festival, OFF Festival, Jarocin Festival, or Smooth Festival. Also foreign fans came to like them as the group was able to witness during their performance during German Fusion Festival and Dutch Eurosonic. They performed as support for the American group Beirut or the Canadian singer Basia Bulat. The group is scheduled to play as a supporting act for the Scottish group Belle & Sebastian, at Europavox Festival in France, Liverpool Sound City in Great Britain and in August there is the concert tour in Europe. The group's performances are a solid dose of independent pop music arranged in an interesting way - mixture of alt country and urban folk. The group's work is very close to such music genres like indie folk and alt country. "Paula and Karol" are precursors of this genre in Poland. One may try to claim that so far they are the only ones. Their inspirations are groups like Noah and the Whale, Coco Rosie, Arcade Fire, Great Lake Swimmers, or The Decemberists. In January 2010 they released a single entitled Goodnight Warsaw, and in December the debut record Overshare.
ticket: 30 PLN
for festival pass holders: 15 PLN
The ticket includes entries to all concerts in the Festival Club on July 28