Text by Rafał Księżyk Trost Records Since a new edition of Inne Brzmienia is starting, it is time for another installment of the series that has consistently accompanied the festival and presents the most interesting independent record labels from around the world. This year’s focus is the Trost label. The 35-year history of the label carries an uplifting message, showing that passion and consistency can fulfill even the most unusual dreams. After all, Austria is an absolutely peripheral country when it comes to rock and jazz, and yet it is there that Trost operates, having become a globally recognized and important name in jazz — and not only jazz — avant-garde. In Vienna in the early 1990s, Konstantin Drobil, then a fan of more radical bands from the local punk scene, decided to release their music. Trost’s first releases were cassette tapes featuring furious guitar-driven sounds. In 1997, a breakthrough moment for the label occurred. Drobil’s colleagues from the noise group Alboth formed a new project called Sprawl with the legendary saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and proposed releasing their album. Drobil not only published the material, but also became fascinated by free jazz expression. He could not have had a better introduction to this form, because Brötzmann — active since the late 1960s — is a key hero of the European free jazz scene. Following the trail of his work, Drobil reached the roots of the phenomenon and became completely absorbed. He discovered that free jazz musicians created the first independent, rebellious music scene in Central Europe, operating like an informal international network. In the 21st century, Trost and its sub-labels continue writing new chapters of this tradition, where improvised music intertwines with noise rock, post-rock, and electro-acoustic experimentation. “I release music that impresses me — genre does not matter,” Drobil [...]