A genre-bending and sometimes politically charged Polish rock collective that skillfully navigates the disparate worlds of punk, jazz, new wave, psych and hard rock, Kult was formed in Warsaw in 1982 around mastermind Kazik Staszewski (saxophone, lead vocals), Piotr Wieteska (bass), Tadeusz Bagan (guitars), and Dariusz Gierszewski (drums). The group's early sound was largely based around new wave and alternative rock, but as the years went by (and bandmembers came and went), Kult developed into a truly cosmopolitan-sounding unit that would liberally toss in everything from 13 studio albums, including a 2010 recording of an MTV Unplugged concert that saw the group's popularity extend well outside of its native Poland. ~ James Christopher Monger