Thank you so much for sharing this! In Polish, it's called a quite nice name “pocztówki dźwiękowe” (literally "sound postcards”). When learning about life during 1970s/80s in Poland, I’ve been fortunate to pick up random stories about some of this. Vinyl LPs and cassettes were expensive and hard to get at the time. So instead you could get these flexi discs. They could have all manner of audio content-- music, radio shows, state propaganda-- even cooking recipes! The cool part was people could write on the back, stamp them, and literally mail them to each other. It was a like a mailable mixtape. The sound quality was horrible, but it was quite a treat if you received one. And most of the time, the designs were quite striking.
Tonpress deserves more attention. it was one of the strangest and most fascinating cultural hybrids during communist times. Hidden in a housing estate, their studio had some seriously top-notch gear at the same time every other Polish state cultural institution had nothing. Politically connected and still rebellious at the same time. It wasn’t just the music and the art, but the fact that it even existed at all that’s still mindblowing. And they were also helping up and coming bands and other artists across disciplines. Just one of many stories from over here that's been amazing to learn about. Hope you enjoy many more great finds...
Ryan thanks so much for sharing all of this! So cool to know. Where did you learn all of this? I was scouring the internet trying to find more info about Tonpress to no avail and would love to have more sources.
Hi Rachel, my pleasure (-: I made my first trip to Poland in the mid-1990s, would visit every couple of years after. Now I live in the region. So there is a lot of history that is still not so distant. There is not a lot of info in English, but the Polish sources can be translated a la Google. Give me a sec, and I can post a few of the more accessible sources for you...
This is so rad
Thank you so much for sharing this! In Polish, it's called a quite nice name “pocztówki dźwiękowe” (literally "sound postcards”). When learning about life during 1970s/80s in Poland, I’ve been fortunate to pick up random stories about some of this. Vinyl LPs and cassettes were expensive and hard to get at the time. So instead you could get these flexi discs. They could have all manner of audio content-- music, radio shows, state propaganda-- even cooking recipes! The cool part was people could write on the back, stamp them, and literally mail them to each other. It was a like a mailable mixtape. The sound quality was horrible, but it was quite a treat if you received one. And most of the time, the designs were quite striking.
Tonpress deserves more attention. it was one of the strangest and most fascinating cultural hybrids during communist times. Hidden in a housing estate, their studio had some seriously top-notch gear at the same time every other Polish state cultural institution had nothing. Politically connected and still rebellious at the same time. It wasn’t just the music and the art, but the fact that it even existed at all that’s still mindblowing. And they were also helping up and coming bands and other artists across disciplines. Just one of many stories from over here that's been amazing to learn about. Hope you enjoy many more great finds...
Ryan thanks so much for sharing all of this! So cool to know. Where did you learn all of this? I was scouring the internet trying to find more info about Tonpress to no avail and would love to have more sources.
Hi Rachel, my pleasure (-: I made my first trip to Poland in the mid-1990s, would visit every couple of years after. Now I live in the region. So there is a lot of history that is still not so distant. There is not a lot of info in English, but the Polish sources can be translated a la Google. Give me a sec, and I can post a few of the more accessible sources for you...
So probably the person in the U.S. right now with the best knowledge is here https://music.unc.edu/people/musicfaculty/andrea-f-bohlman Some really good published research, and might have more scoop and images.
Other person who has a lot of insight in English is the organizer of the big annual Unsound festival in Krakow https://www.unsound.pl/en/archive/en/noise/artists/mat-schulz.html There was a nice piece he wrote in English a few years ago here https://www.biweekly.pl/article/2756-sound-postcards.html
Last one (-: You maybe saw this already, but here is a YouTube video that shows them in action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shisgymvKZ8&t=10s
Wow Ryan thank you so so much! Excited to dive into all of these.