The Warpaint bass arrives first. The guitars follow a few steps behind, like light that has not quite left the water. Someone beside us stops telling a story. A moment ago we meant to move to another stage. Now we stay. This is what I would like to bring home from OFF 2027: a plan tucked into my pocket, a song beginning to shape its own evening.
I would dearly love to go. I can already hear concerts nobody has promised me. In my version, Suede, Stereolab and Little Simz meet beside the ponds. Then come Warpaint, Dry Cleaning, Nala Sinephro and dozens of reasons to leave the path. This is a personal, imagined programme. Dates, artist availability and fees remain unconfirmed. Still, a dream can be grounded in musical memory.
Old posters, open doors
On the first poster, from Mysłowice in 2006, Lech Janerka, Maria Peszek, Lenny Valentino and The White Birch appear together. You can hear the beginnings of a festival where very different sensibilities can stand side by side. The National and Spiritualized arrive in 2009. A year later OFF moves to Katowice, and Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips lifts its imagination higher. In 2013 Wodecki meets Mitch & Mitch. An old record suddenly finds new listeners. OFF: 2006, 2009, 2010, 2013.
I look through the lineups of all 19 regular editions from 2006 to 2026. Between Mazzy Star, My Bloody Valentine, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey and M.I.A. run names once printed in tiny letters. Festival memory works that way: years later, some small names become the biggest. Not everyone in an archived announcement ultimately performed, so cancellations matter when imagining returns. OFF: 2006 do 2026.
That history informs my main decision for 2027: three headliners, a strong middle and plenty of first encounters. I propose 36 concerts as the programme’s backbone. The remaining spaces belong to music we do not yet know. Next year’s good festival should be allowed to surprise even the person trying to invent it.
Friday. Reverb stays on the skin
Suede get the first big evening. Their 2019 appearance gives this fantasy a firm foothold, while the current activity around Antidepressants and their 2026 concerts suggests a band living in the present. I would love The Wild Ones alongside newer songs. Brett Anderson would lean towards the crowd as though one person several rows away absolutely had to hear the final word. Suede · OFF 2019.
Warpaint would return after their 2011 appearance. Their music leaves room for moving hips and thoughts that refuse to become sentences. Bass and drums keep us grounded; guitars let us drift a little. I would give them dusk and a long set. No hurry, with room for passages where the most important things happen between the instruments. OFF 2011.
Dry Cleaning would bring the rough grain of everyday language. Secret Love, released in January 2026 and produced by Cate Le Bon, is a tangible reason to imagine another meeting. Florence Shaw speaks a sentence, the guitar begins to disagree, the drums urge both onwards. Just before them, caroline might scatter strings, voices and pauses across the stage. The eight-piece after caroline 2 is my bet for a concert that starts making sense on the journey home. Secret Love · caroline 2.
DABDA would arrive from South Korea. Their pastel psychedelia leaves space for tenderness even through rhythmic turns. Alongside them Richard Dawson, then Finland’s Oranssi Pazuzu: a song with ragged edges and psychedelia thickening into metal. After hours of beautiful melodies, we need a moment when sound starts moving the walls. DABDA · Oranssi Pazuzu.
For Friday’s Polish contingent I choose Trupa Trupa, Coals, Oxford Drama, Enchanted Hunters and Rosa Vertov. Each deserves its own hour and light. Trupa Trupa need time to tighten their loops, Oxford Drama to let songs sway, Coals to spread electronic mist. I want to encounter Polish bands when the festival is already full, too.
Saturday. Someone asks who this band is
Stereolab close Saturday. The rhythm glides steadily, keyboards flicker, a melody emerges behind another layer. A return after 2019 also makes sense through 2025’s Instant Holograms on Metal Film. This music knows its language well and still wants to shift the emphasis. I imagine it beside the ponds and immediately want to stay another day. Stereolab.
Before them, Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek. The bağlama draws a bright line over a soft soul foundation; the voice comes close, then leaves us with the band. After OFF 2018 and Yarın Yoksa, recorded with Leon Michels, a return sounds convincing. A performance by Brazil’s Ana Frango Elétrico would take that movement elsewhere. Electric Fish opens the door with bass; small surprises in the arrangement wait inside. Yarın Yoksa · Ana Frango Elétrico.
But I am watching Florence Adooni most closely. You come to see what is happening by the stage. You stay for the vocal responses, highlife and funk pulse. The Ghanaian artist’s music also grows from Frafra traditions, but on this imagined afternoon we would feel it in our legs first. Questions would follow. This is my personal choice for the concert most likely to leave people asking how they had never listened before. Florence Adooni.
Niger’s Etran de L’Aïr would let several guitars tell the same night at once. The band grew out of Agadez’s wedding scene; that background helps explain why repetition never takes the music’s breath away. Then Australia’s Surprise Chef, Colombia’s BALTHVS and Japan’s Minami Deutsch. Cinematic groove, warm psychedelia and motorik trance. Three routes to the place where you stop checking the time. Etran de L’Aïr · Surprise Chef · BALTHVS.
I place EABS near Surprise Chef and ETNOBOTANIKA beside Saturday’s psychedelic stretch. Sutari and Raphael Rogiński get separate, attentive sets. In this company, Polish recordings begin a conversation with the wider world. Just listen to the different ways of touching a string, arranging voices or looping a fragment of memory.
Sunday. Let us not go home yet
Little Simz would be my most ambitious choice for the finale. Her rap needs room for a sentence, a breath and a shift of weight. I want a big concert that can briefly draw close to one face in the crowd. Financially and logistically, this choice needs checking. If it proved impossible, I would consider Young Fathers, who played OFF in 2015. Their collective labour of voice and rhythm could close the weekend just as forcefully. OFF 2015.
Nala Sinephro would have a space where we could hear the end of a sound. Her announced 2025 performance was cancelled; Anatole Muster replaced her. Here the fantasy has a particularly strong historical foothold. Beside her, Japan’s Ichiko Aoba. For both, the hour and whatever is playing behind the neighbouring trees would matter as much as the name on the poster. OFF 2025.
Lankum, Juana Molina and KOKOKO! would lead Sunday through different kinds of tension. Irish folk would acquire the weight of drone, Argentine loops would reshape the song, and electronics linked to Kinshasa would bring a rough, percussive drive. I would schedule these sets so we could follow the whole route. Sometimes a festival survives in memory as three performances that accidentally began telling one story. KOKOKO!.
Warhaus would bring Belgian half-light. Ruby Haunt would have a smaller stage at the hour when light becomes slightly unreal. This is music for memories we never managed to live: roads beyond town, a window, our reflection laid over a darkening landscape. I want to see them at OFF precisely because I can imagine leaving that concert so clearly.
Siema Ziemia would take us from acoustic instruments towards thinking in loops. Nagrobki would add mischievous weight, Łona x Konieczny x Krupa precise storytelling, Mitch & Mitch freedom. I would also leave the latter room for an idea of their own with guests. The Wodecki story shows what a carefully prepared meeting can yield. The musicians themselves would have to invent the new project.
Names written in the margin
Another festival remains in my notebook. Beach House, Men I Trust, Night Tapes, The Clientele and The Antlers provide its soft light. Hiatus Kaiyote, Altın Gün and L’Impératrice provide movement. Arooj Aftab, Hania Rani, DakhaBrakha and Yasmine Hamdan offer other ways to concentrate. Cate Le Bon changes the angles inside songs, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard open side passages, Kiasmos let us stay after the last guitar, and Ladaniva raise the temperature.
There are also Nilüfer Yanya, Mong Tong and Kombajn do Zbierania Kur po Wioskach, who appeared at OFF in 2025, and Błoto from 2026. I treat such quick returns more cautiously. Air and Massive Attack remain this page’s costliest dreams in the imagined scale of the event, not in any fees I know. Inviting either would mean rearranging the top of the poster. All these names belong to the article’s musical journey, however. With the main programme, they make 59 acts. OFF 2025, 2026.
I want that journey to have a pace of its own. From soft guitars through Polish songs, African pulse, Asian turns and psychedelia to voices that linger after the speakers fall silent. This is how I imagine 140 tracks for a festival that currently exists between headphones and a notebook.
My poster. 36 concerts
Days are illustrative. The order of names does not indicate set times. This is Tony Muzyki’s imagined programme.
| Day | Headliner | Other acts |
|---|---|---|
| Friday | Suede | Warpaint, Dry Cleaning, caroline, Richard Dawson, Oranssi Pazuzu, DABDA, Trupa Trupa, Coals, Oxford Drama, Enchanted Hunters, Rosa Vertov |
| Saturday | Stereolab | Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek, Ana Frango Elétrico, Florence Adooni, Etran de L’Aïr, Surprise Chef, BALTHVS, Minami Deutsch, EABS, ETNOBOTANIKA, Sutari, Raphael Rogiński |
| Sunday | Little Simz | Nala Sinephro, Ichiko Aoba, Lankum, Juana Molina, KOKOKO!, Warhaus, Ruby Haunt, Siema Ziemia, Nagrobki, Łona x Konieczny x Krupa, Mitch & Mitch |
Tony Muzyki’s imaginary betting desk
These are fictional editorial odds, with no real wagers or money. Each selection is a separate event: the act plays the main OFF 2027 edition. The illustrative chance is 1 / odds. Values do not add up to 100%, since several predictions may come true together. There is no statistical model, inside information or knowledge of fees behind them.
| Act | My odds | Illustrative chance | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nala Sinephro | 4.00 | 25% | An earlier invitation and cancelled concert provide a concrete lead. |
| Dry Cleaning | 4.00 | 25% | A 2026 album and a strong artistic fit. |
| Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek | 5.00 | 20% | A long gap since the previous appearance, with strong current material. |
| caroline | 5.00 | 20% | A good moment for a more visible band that still experiments. |
| Stereolab | 6.00 | ≈ 16.7% | A return with a fresh album context. |
| Trupa Trupa | 6.00 | ≈ 16.7% | A strong festival connection and a natural place in the programme. |
| ETNOBOTANIKA | 6.00 | ≈ 16.7% | A Polish project suited to the electronic and psychedelic strands. |
| Suede | 8.00 | 12.5% | Past precedent and current activity, but a compatible tour is needed. |
| Warpaint | 8.00 | 12.5% | A dream return; availability remains open. |
| Ana Frango Elétrico | 8.00 | 12.5% | A strong artistic fit, dependent on European dates. |
| Florence Adooni | 8.00 | 12.5% | My discovery pick, with logistics unconfirmed. |
| Etran de L’Aïr | 8.00 | 12.5% | Guitar trance fits beautifully; a suitable tour remains essential. |
| Lankum | 10.00 | 10% | Great live potential; competing dates may matter. |
| Little Simz | 12.00 | ≈ 8.3% | An ambitious headliner requiring checks on scale and availability. |
| Ichiko Aoba | 12.00 | ≈ 8.3% | A beautiful choice requiring suitable conditions and dates. |
| Mong Tong | 20.00 | 5% | Lower odds of a return after the relatively recent 2025 appearance. |
| Air | 25.00 | 4% | A major dream that would reshape the top of the programme. |
| Massive Attack | 40.00 | 2.5% | The biggest uncertainty of scale and production on this ticket. |
My most sensible ticket names Dry Cleaning, Derya Yıldırım and Nala Sinephro. My most personal one names Florence Adooni. I see someone stopping at the edge, then calling their friends over. A moment ago they meant to keep walking. Now they stand closer to the stage. That is the OFF I mean. I would love finally to be there, with my plan tucked into my pocket.
Memory and sources
The comparison covers all 19 regular editions: 2006 to 2019 and 2022 to 2026. The regular festivals in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled; OFF Country Club 2021 is treated separately. The combined archive also contains announcements and requires cancellation checks. Every historical performance has not been independently verified. The 2027 programme and odds are personal proposals, without a confirmed budget or artist availability. OFF Festival · Wikipedia: OFF Festival.
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