#topfives #gigs2025 1. Sparks - Manchester Apollo 2. Robert Forster - Band on the Wall 3. Trupa Trupa - Preston Continental 4. Field Music - BOTW 5. Ezra Furman - Liverpool Rough Trade Improved health allowed me to go to more gigs this year but then developed tinnitus which impeded 2nd half of year

Mourners in the Top 10 on Onet.pl 🖤

1/7 I’ve already wrapped up my Trupa Trupa year in review, and now it’s time for my academic and writing summary plus plans for 2026. Next year I’ll be visiting, among others, Harvard, Northwestern University, Yale University, George Mason University, Oxford

1/4 The premiere of the "Mourners" album took place in Hollywood in Los Angeles. The tour began on the West Coast, moved to the East Coast, and ended with a concert in New York City. We then returned to Europe for shows in Poland, the Netherlands, England, and Ireland.

Here’s a Boxing Day deal for ya: my Top 100 Songs of 2025, absolutely free! open.substack.com/pub/stuberma...

1/2 We couldn’t have imagined a better way to close the year and open a new one: we’ve hit #4 on @rahrahraina.bsky.social & @wxpnfm.bsky.social’s Top Ten List of the Year. To top it off, Raina hosted us on NPR’s World Cafe, America’s most popular public radio music show, where we performed Mourners

"Who among us is truly normal? Everyone has something, everyone is different, and that is precisely the new, wonderful norm . . . that so deeply irritates the far-right moralists." Beautiful essay by @g-kwiatkowski.bsky.social in @worldlittoday.bsky.social: worldliteraturetoday.org/2026/january...

Featured on Zaph Mann's - The Beat Goes On - inmemoryofjohnpeel.com/2025/12/20/t... Sister Ray by Trupa Trupa @trupatrupa.bsky.social Mourners (Glitterbeat) @Glitterbeat 2025 trupatrupa.bandcamp.com/album/mourners

“I think absurdity, together with guilt and the state of lost innocence, without melodrama or self-pity, is what most reminds me of Kafka.” Grzegorz Kwiatkowski considers the film Franz’s universal relevance. @g-kwiatkowski.bsky.social worldliteraturetoday.org/2026/january...

Hip hip hooray! “Mourners” is #2 on Polish Radio Three’s songs of the year list.

1/3 Great, great joy on my part: a jubilee issue (100 years of publication) of one of the world’s most important literary magazines, World Literature Today, has just been released.

WE’RE #6!!! Our album is #6 on Greg Kot’s Sound Opinions Best Albums of the Year list. Same list as FKA twigs, Rosalía, Stereolab, Wet Leg. We thought that was it after Rolling Stone, but nope!

Thank you very much for a wonderful evening at the Vienna International Research Center for Cultural Studies. Photo: IFK

Hello from Vienna! This evening’s event “Denkpausen mit Grzegorz Kwiatkowski” is at the International Centre for Cultural Research. In the photo: St. Marx Cemetery, one of Vienna’s most beautiful spots and where Mozart is buried. Just next to it is a small cemetery beehive.

Indie rock anthem “Mourners” by the Polish band Trupa Trupa has been ranked among the best songs of the year by Rolling Stone magazine.

We’re in Gazeta Wyborcza’s Top Ten Albums of the Year! wyborcza.pl/7,113768,324...

I really like this photo illustrating the roughly Rolling Stone–related article. www.trojmiasto.pl/rozrywka/Mou... Photo by Piotr Hukało / Trojmiasto.pl

W rankingu 100 najlepszych songów roku 2025 wg legendarnego magazynu @rollingstone.com na 76 miejscu znalazła się ta pieśń polskiej kapeli @trupatrupa.bsky.social. www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfKI... Ranking tu: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

Hooray! We are on @rollingstone.com list of best songs of the year! www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...

I invite you to a meeting with me at Northwestern University in Chicago. This will be my second time at this university, at the invitation of the wonderful Professor Rachel Jamison Webster, and the poster below was created by Colin Pope.

Just arrived in the mail! I’m holding in my hand Daniel Rachel’s latest book This Ain’t Rock ’n’ Roll, the Rough Trade Book of the Year, the book that ends with the story of my fight against fascist windmills (the real kind).

One more photo from the November Oxford University panel “What about exclusion?” The next edition will take place in the spring! Photo by Sanskruti Biswal.

demo session photos: Tomasz Pawluczuk

Hip hip hooray for Idan Weiss’s nomination for the European Film Awards for his title role in Kafka directed by A. Holland! A wonderful, brilliant, truly masterful performance that reminds me of young Leonardo DiCaprio as Arthur Rimbaud in Total Eclipse, also directed by Holland. Go go go FRANZ!

FRANZ arrives in French cinemas on November 19. Here’s the poster spotted today in Paris. Not to be missed. Photo: Jarosław Orłowski

A Gdańsk post-screening conversation about Franz Kafka, directed by Agnieszka Holland, takes place tomorrow at the Museum of the Second World War. After the screening I’ll talk with Marcin Mindykowski about Kafka’s writing, Holland’s film, and the music of Trupa Trupa.

The Cheuse Center has published an essay about my work and recent stay in the US: cheusecenter.gmu.edu/articles/22778 Thanks to Chris Baah for his insight and patience. In April I’ll return to Washington for a talk with Malte Herwig, with Colm Tóibín among the speakers.

Speech at the European Parliament. Photo: Kevin Winiker.

“Dzień Dobry TVN” filmed a piece about our Grzegorz - with a lot of our music inside, including footage from our recent Kafka concert at All About Freedom. Here’s an excerpt. The full version is at: dziendobry.tvn.pl/gwiazdy/grze...

I’ve just arrived at the European Parliament, and my speech will start after 6 p.m. - all as part of the Parliament of Pop event 🖤

A conversation about Kafka Trupa and a few other topics on Český rozhlas Vltava. vltava.rozhlas.cz/ztracime-nad...

Check out the new video featuring Trupa Trupa’s music in Agnieszka Holland’s new film FRANZ. Trupa Trupa’s music is part of the new biopic about writer Franz Kafka. The film is Poland’s official candidate for the Oscars. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcMG...

Saw Trupa Trupa last year. Enjoyable night 👍

1/ “Kafka by je miloval” sounds much more beautiful in Czech than the English “Kafka would have loved them” or the Polish “Kafka by ich lubił.” I love the Czech language and this quote by Agnieszka Holland about Trupa Trupa, which appears in the “ArtCafé” program

Důvod, proč jsme se s Grzegorzem spojili, je prostý: právě kapela Trupa Trupa složila hudbu pro nový film Agnieszky Holland Franz. https://vltava.rozhlas.cz/ztracime-nadeji-demokraticke-struktury-jsou-v-ohrozeni-rika-grzegorz-kwiatkowski-9571624

This was the most successful ed. of Oxford series What about Exclusion. After the ep. at Jesus Coll. it was time for Old Fire Stn. Heartfelt thx to our guests: R. McCabe, Y. Okuleye, Rawz & M. Harrison and to our wonderful & numerous audience. See you in spring for the next ep.

Oxford is the kind of place where you find a poster for your own band hanging in a university hallway 🖤 #mansfieldcollege

1/ My anti-fascist struggle with various historical and contemporary windmills has been described in Daniel Rachel’s latest book "This Ain’t Rock ’n’ Roll." My story and Trupa Trupa’s story close this dark and brilliant book, which is causing quite a stir and has just landed on the

This Monday, join us at the University of Oxford for the second edition of "What about exclusion", which I have the pleasure of co-curating. Our guests: Prof. Richard McCabe, Dr Yewande Okuleye, Rawz, and Prof. Mark Harrison. More info: www.antitheses.net/events/what-about-exclusion-1

Kafka is here! Today, Franz Kafka, directed by Agnieszka Holland, opens in Polish cinemas. We’re grateful to have been part of this beautiful project. See it on the big screen 🖤

‘What about #exclusion?’ Join a public discussion with a panel of artists and academics reflecting on implications of #censorship and the perceived needs for #self-censorship. Mon 27 Oct, 10-11:30am Old Fire Station Theatre OX1 2AQ www.antitheses.net/events/what-...

Brussels gig alert! On November 5th, I’ll be speaking at the European Parliament during Parliament of Pop event, featuring among others Jools Holland and Manfred Tari, who curated the programme. Details at: www.parliamentofpop.com

A night with Kafka, Holland, and Mourners. Photo: ECS Archive / Rafał Mroziński

1/ It’s a true joy to return to Vienna 🖤 I warmly invite you to the International Center for Cultural Studies, where I will present my two German poetry collections brennend and ohne Orchester, both translated by Peter Constantine and published by Parasitenpresse.

I’m so happy that we’re finally announcing this 🖤 The University of Oxford and I warmly invite you to the Old Fire Station for the second panel in a row that I’m co-curating, titled “What about exclusion?” See you on October 27th in Oxford! Details: www.antitheses.net/events/what-...

I wrote about this once before, but with this piece I’ll say it again: Agnieszka Holland, right alongside Iggy Pop, is one of the biggest fans of TT 🖤 Video: Magdalena Shaukovska

1/ It’s not the end of Kafka-related news and I couldn’t have wished or imagined a better leap from Yale to Gdańsk. The wonderful Agnieszka Holland has received the Solidarity and Human Rights Award granted by the European Solidarity Centre.

Playing music from FRANZ and our new album Mourners in front of director Agnieszka Holland was such a wonderful experience. Huge thanks to her and to our amazing audience 🖤 Photo: Katarzyna Bogusz

Today’s the day! First, the screening of FRANZ, and then our concert featuring music from the film and our new album Mourners. The concert starts at 22:00 at the All About Freedom Festival in ECS, Gdańsk. See you there 🖤