OFF Festival remains one of the most important alternative music festivals in Central Europe. For years it’s brought genre-bending musicians and a discovery-searching public to its festival city of Katowice. This year’s edition continues this trend – the line-up includes numerous artists from the UK. Their attendance underlines the bond between the British music scene and international alternative culture while remaining one of the highlights of this year’s program.
The festival takes place during 7-9 August at Trzech Stawów Valley in Katowice, Poland.
Please find below a few words about the UK artists performing this year:
1. SAAM SULTAN
“Can you hear me? Can you feel me?” Saam Sultan asks on the track “I See Star.” You bet we can. And we’re not the only ones to see him as the next rising star of British rap. Born and raised in Florida, where he caught the music bug, he later moved to Brighton, England, where he went even deeper down the rabbit hole, with great success. Today, he’s a producer, rapper, and an entry on the NME’s 100 Essential Emerging Artists for 2026, a spot he earned for transforming “the internet swagger of 2010s Tumblr culture into a woozy UK cloud-rap revival.” Listeners who’ve already got Saam on their musical radars praise his experimental, ethereal production and recommend him to fans of Yung Lean and Bladee. And it just so happens that all three will be performing at the OFF Festival August 7–9. You know what to do.
2. GETDOWN SERVICES
Move aside, Noel and Liam! 2026 is the year of Getdown Services, the Guardian writes. They sold out their 2025 shows in the U.K. and the U.S., and this year they’re heading out to tour Australia and New Zealand, but they’ll be back soon after to perform their first show in Poland – at the OFF Festival, of course. You’ll thank us. After all, wherever Getdown Services go, people have a way of feeling better. It’s “the kind of gig where you lose a shoe, gain a bruise, and still call it the best night of the year,” according to fans who’ve seen them live. The Bristol-based duo is uproariously funny, but they’ve got both feet planted firmly on the ground. They have the edgy charm of Fat Dog and Dry Cleaning, with musical echoes of T-Rex, Daft Punk, AC/DC, and Chic – it kinda depends on the mood the band’s in when they set out to heal the world. Come and listen to these two, because they’ve got something to say.
3. BABYMOROCCO
Put your hand up if you like to party in sweatpants and a bikini! Babymoroco will have a lot of love for you at OFF Festival. His musical parents are Frost Children, and under their producer's care, Babymorocco released the hit album "Amour" in 2024. Which—if his words are to be believed—was recorded with the intention of creating the sexiest music in the world. Shortly afterward, "Clash" magazine hailed him as a future pop innovator, and "METAL" as a glitter-drenched provocateur. In short: he's worth getting to know! Meeting Babymorocco is a euphoric journey through a colorful world filled with frenetic BPM: early 21st-century dance, French electro, 2-step, happy hardcore, and… Only Babymoroco knows what else he'll surprise us with in Katowice.
4. JOHNNY MARR
For a while, he tried to play like his idols, Nile Rodgers of Chic and The Pretenders’ James Honeyman-Scott, before he finally came up with a style all his own. It made him one of the biggest guitarists of our times. “A fucking wizard” is what his great fan and mentee Noel Gallagher called him. And he knew what he was talking about: he’d had an opportunity to see Marr at work on Oasis albums and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. The guitarist and songwriter has also worked with Talking Heads, Beck, Pet Shop Boys, Bryan Ferry, Hans Zimmer, and Billie Eilish. But enough about the side projects. If it weren’t for Johnny Marr, we wouldn’t have had the “Beatles of the ‘80s” – The Smiths – and Morrissey wouldn’t have been their lead singer. We wouldn’t have their inimitable sound and the records that would one day inspire the likes of Blur, Suede, Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead. After The Smiths broke up, Johnny Marr went on to play with The Healers, The The, Modest Mouse, and The Cribs, and released four solo albums that proved not only that he’s a guitar genius, but that he has a knack for writing catchy songs. And in 2026, the legendary Johnny Marr is going to perform them at the OFF Festival!
5. CHALK
They met at film school, bonding over a mutual love for raucous music that none of their friends were listening to. Both subjects remain important to the band: they shoot their own videos and pay attention to the visual dimension of their art, which blurs the line between punk, techno, and electronic music. They hail from Belfast, but their music has a bit of Berlin in it, and has even been called “Berghain rock.” The BBC calls it “the most exciting Northern Irish guitar band in years.” Listen to Chalk for just a few minutes and it‘ll be immediately clear the work of Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, Gilla Band, Wim Wenders, Ingmar Bergman, and Caravaggio – all of whom the band cite as influences – wasn’t wasted on them. Don’t miss this chance to see them at the OFF Festival!
6. JOANNE ROBERTSON
Dean Blunt (who performed at OFF in 2015), Oliver Coates (2017), and Elias Rønnenfelt (2025). What do they all have in common? Each of them has recognized Joanne Robertson’s talent. Her 2025 album Blurrr has been hailed a musical masterpiece – a minimalist one, at that, recorded with nothing more than voice, guitar, and a guest appearance by Coates’s cello. Joanna – who has been compared to the likes of Cocteau’s Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser, Cat Power, and Sinéad O’Connor – writes songs that “pour sugar directly onto raw wounds in a way that is healing and transformative. Alchemical, I guess,” to quote the critic Byron Coley. There’s plenty of praise to cite here, but no one could come close to expressing in words the beauty that’s encapsulated in her songs. These compositions and this voice are something you just have to experience live at the OFF Festival.
7. BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD
In past editions, we’ve featured Shame and Squid, and we’ve had shows by Black Midi and Fat Dog. Now it’s finally time for Black Country, New Road, the latest band to hail from Brixton’s Windmill scene, which music journalists have called “the most important movement in British rock music in the past decade.” Black Country, New Roads started out as a seven-piece outfit that combined post rock, punk, art pop, and jazz. Their initial lineup was soon proclaimed “the best band in the world” by The Quietus. Now performing as a sextet, the band calls their career “a series of unfortunate events,” but one that has luckily only made them stronger – as a musical group, and as friends. They recorded their debut For the First Time just weeks before COVID put a stop to live music. They lay down tracks for Ants from Up There only to see the unexpected departure of their singer, Isaac Wood. On their latest effort, Forever Howlong, Black Country, New Road are reintroducing themselves to audiences. Critics welcomed their new incarnation, calling it a “multi-headed beast,” and praised the group for expanding their new sound while making a noticeable departure from their earlier style. We can’t wait to get a taste at the OFF Festival!
8. JOSHUA IDEHEN
It all started with the Dizzee Rascal track “Vexed.” Joshua Idehen heard it and was left entranced, feeling like he wanted to pour out his emotions in much the same way. He’d spent years on the spoken-word circuit, performing in a series of London-based projects. He’d also ventured beyond the local scene, making appearances on records by Daedalus, Metronomy, and The Comet is Coming, and opening for Baxter Dury. Then, in 2026, he was hailed the new discovery and audience favorite at the Eurosonic showcase festival. Joshua Idehen, whose heart beats as strongly for poetry and the spoken word as it does for dance music, is releasing his debut LP, I Know You’re Hurting, Everyone Is Hurting, Everyone Is Trying, You Have Got to Try, this spring. We can’t wait to hear that new material live at the OFF Festival. The record opens with the titular question: “You Wanna Dance or What?” But we know it’s purely rhetorical, don’t we?
For more information about the festival, please visit: https://off-festival.pl/en